


Drift of Phantasms

by Mertiya



Category: Magic: The Gathering, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Depression, Drift Compatibility, Drift Hangover, Drift Sex, Drift Side Effects, F/F, Gideon is a Jaeger, Grief/Mourning, Jace doesn't think he's a hero, Liliana is a kaiju, Loss, M/M, Other people think Jace is being dumb, Planeswalker epithets make great Jaeger names, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ral doesn't think it matters, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:03:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: The Rhoka brothers are well-known for the exceptional Drift compatibility and the skill with which they pilot Martial Paragon.  When a terrible blow is struck against them, Jace must cope with the loss of his hero and best friend, with the help of the newest members of the Science Team and his old friend Dr. Tandris.  Meanwhile, Avacyn and Sorin Markov are chosen as the replacement pilots, but whether they will be able to defend the Dome against Villainess is anyone's guess.





	1. Drift of the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Ionbound for the idea of Gideon being a Jaeger, to Olivia for the idea of Ashaya being a Jaeger, to Rastaban for general support and pointing out what GREAT Jaeger names planeswalker epithets are. Also thanks to Zomburai, Juri, and paperclipminimizer, and everyone who cheered me on in the Vorthos discord server. I don't know exactly how this happened or how it got so long but it was really fun to write, and I hope you guys like it too.

            “Movement within the Breach!” Ral Zarek looked up from the program he’d been running, an icy frisson of anticipation running down his spine. He reached for the coffee cup at his elbow and wrinkled his nose as he took a swallow. It was ice cold. Damn.

            “Iskra, get me more coffee, will you?” he asked his intern, who ran a hand through her spiky hair and nodded distractedly. Ral chewed on his knuckle and finished the rest of what was now essentially iced coffee with a grimace. He hated cold coffee, but he needed all the stimulants he could get. He changed windows rapidly and checked the data readouts for the shore sensors, and the sensors they had set up further out toward the Breach itself. Smaller than he would have expected, but then he’d only been working at the Shatterdome for a few weeks, so maybe his intuition was off.

            “What the fuck?” Maree said from the computer beside him. “That’s a ridiculously small signature. I’d almost guess a Category One from those readings.”

            “Let’s get up to LOCCENT,” Ral said tersely. “I don’t trust anomalies, especially ones that seem too good to be true. The computers can take the necessary data, but I want to be on-hand.” In addition to the modeling he’d been doing, Ral was working on sensor design for the Jaegers themselves, making them better able to do what they needed to do by improving their detection systems. He’d started in computer engineering, moved to computer vision, expanded to sensors in general. Working on the Jaegers was a dream come true, and Ral wasn’t going to miss a second of feedback that he could use to further improve matters.

            Grabbing his jacket, Ral followed Maree out of the computer lab. Iskra joined them on the way up, pressing a cup of coffee into Ral’s hand. “You know I can do things other than just make you coffee, right?” she said.

            “None of them are as relevant right now,” Ral told her, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Come on, I’m sure you can learn something up in LOCCENT.”

            When the three of them slipped into mission control, they saw that Marshal Tirel was already bending over the screens with the technicians. “It shouldn’t take more than one Jaeger,” she was saying, “but send out Martial Paragon with Vital Force as backup. We don’t want to get caught with our pants down. Got it?”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            Ral leaned quietly against the back wall, keeping one eye on the readouts and one on the visuals. Ranger Nalaar, Ranger Revane, and the two Rhoka brothers were suiting up, chatting back and forth to one another. Ral was new enough to the Dome that he hadn’t really interacted with any of them, although as far as he knew there was no real animosity between the various divisions. True, the rangers were treated a bit like celebrities, but like approachable ones, from what he'd seen.

            You could hardly be alive in post K-day world and not know the Jaeger and their pilots by name, though. And since Ral had had a hand in designing the new sensors that had been installed in Martial Paragon, he was especially well-aware of Paragon’s capabilities, and that included the capabilities of its pilots. The Rhoka brothers had come out of nowhere two years ago, during one of the routine trials, due to their incredible speed and off-the-charts Drift compabitility.

            Now, Ral studied them with something that was possibly more than simple academic interest: two lithe, dark-haired young men with similar fine-boned faces and light eyes. They were staggeringly similar, to the extent that people often mistook them for twins, but if he recalled correctly, Kallist was the elder by a year. The primary difference between them was that Kallist’s nose was crooked where it had clearly been broken and reset at some point, while Jace’s was still straight. The two of them were grinning and laughing together as they finished suiting up inside Paragon.

            “Ready?” Tirel asked, and all four pilots responded with a resounding, “Yes, ma’am!”

            “ _Neural handshake engaged_ ,” Martial Paragon and Vital Force said in chorus. Ral leaned forward with interest, checking the sensor readouts. Vital Force’s handshake increased steadily, without much change in her readouts, but Paragon’s handshake seemed to rise slowly and then snap from noise to signal, a sigmoid function instead of a linear rise. Interesting. Ral needed more tests; if only he could get them to install the sensors on some of the other Jaegers for comparison.

            “Move out,” Tirel ordered, her face the same calm mask it always was. The whirr of the helicopters sounded loud over the comms, and Ral leaned back again, though he kept one eye on the sensor readouts.

            There was a clear difference between what Vital Force was seeing and what Paragon was seeing, even before they hit the ocean. Paragon’s readouts returned a wavering image of the kaiju, a dark sinuous shadow, a good five seconds prior to Vital’s, and Vital’s image entirely failed to register the floating, barely-visible corona of some sort that spread out around the beast.

            “Paragon, stay to the back; we want you to take as many readings as possible. Vital, this should be a straightforward engagement, but do not let your guard down.”

            “Yes, ma’am!” Nissa Revane and Chandra Nalaar spoke in chorus, and Vital Force moved forward to engage. Ral leaned forward, because the halo around the kaiju was flaring in Paragon’s sensors, and that was—that was _intriguing._ What kind of biological structure could it be? It was primarily registering on the electrosensors, which meant—it was probably _also_ probing electric fields. Biology wasn’t strictly Ral’s area, but he knew there were some fish that could sense electric fields—some kind of eel, maybe?

            The creature retreated as Vital advanced, surprisingly nonconfrontational for a kaiju. Ral frowned; glancing to the side told him that the Marshal was frowning as well. “Paragon,” she said, “circle around it from behind.”

            Ackowledgement from Paragon. The Rhoka brothers began to pace around, circling the kaiju, and now it paused, almost as if it were uncertain, that strange corona fluttering around it. Vital swung directly at the kaiju, but the blow landed only glancingly. “ _She’s fast_!” Nalaar reported, somewhat unnecessarily, Ral felt. “ _Paragon, we need you to—”_

And then the kaiju moved, swiveling so rapidly that it seemed to almost blur across the screen. There was a moment of screeching electronics, and Paragon’s sensor readout fuzzed and vanished.

            The Marshal swore, a single short, sharp syllable, and then she leaned forward slightly. “Vital Force, what’s going on?”

            It was Nalaar who answered again. “Paragon’s hit, ma’am! I can’t tell how badly, but they’re listing—the kaiju’s running.”

            There was only a half second’s pause before Tirel spoke. “Follow the kaiju, Vital Force. We’ll send a team to reestablish contact with Paragon.”

            “Yes, ma’am.”

            The kaiju _was_ very fast; in the brief two-sentence exchange, it had nearly vanished from Vital’s sensors. There was just a bare flicker at the edge of sensor range. Ral leaned forward, frowning, as Vital Force began to move forward. To take out the entirety of Paragon’s connections with LOCCENT in a single blow—he shook his head. Hell of a lucky shot.

            Vital Force was moving almost directly away from LOCCENT, just fast enough that the kaiju was remaining at the edge of her sensor range. “They’re never going to catch up at this rate, ma’am,” said Dovin Baan, head of mission control.

            “What do you think happened?” Iskra asked Ral quietly. “How did we lose contact like that?”

            Ral chewed on his lip. “Not sure,” he admitted begrudgingly. “I haven’t really studied the full blueprints, I’ve been spending most of my time with the sensor shit, but I guess either their redundancies aren’t good enough, or somehow a single blow got the transmitter and the backup. There’s a lot of data to transmit…”

            He wanted to get his hands on the full readouts, but it was unlikely he’d be able to until after the mission was over. “So,” he said to Iskra, because even if she was technically just an intern, Ral knew from personal experience she was sharp as a tack, “what do you think about the extra stuff Paragon was picking up?”

            “Something thin, I guess?” Iskra hazarded. “But I don’t know why it wouldn’t show up on Vital’s readouts as well.”

            “Not a large enough disturbance, maybe. Gets lost in the noise.” Ral tipped his head back. “Something thin and subtle that shows up better on Paragon’s enhanced sensors.” He shook his head. “Why send a Category One now? That doesn’t make sense. And why did it run from Vital Force and attack Martial Paragon?” He narrowed his eyes at the flicker still showing at the edge of Vital’s sensor range. “Hard to tell what that _is_ , isn’t it?” he said, slowly.

            “You mean—maybe they’ve lost contact with the real kaiju?” Iskra asked hesitantly.

            “If that’s the case…” Ral tipped his head back. “That could be quite bad,” he murmured. “If we don’t actually know where she is, but we _think_ we do…” He started to get up, wondering if Tirel would be willing to listen to a junior member of the science team—Ral had found that people, especially military personnel, were woefully unlikely to recognize true genius unless it came from someone who already had a long history of experience. Maybe he’d better off trying to contact Mizzet and go through him. What a pain. Well, he might as well try.

            “Marshal?” he said, pushing himself off the wall.

            Tirel looked up. “Yes?”

            “How sure are we that the sensor trail Vital’s chasing is actually the kaiju?”

            Tirel’s eyebrows went up, and he saw her gaze slew towards the sensor readouts. She opened her mouth to respond—and the proximity alarms went off. As the shrieking of the alarms cut through the sudden silence, an impact shuddered throughout LOCCENT, hard enough to Ral knock off his feet. He windmilled his arms, but that wasn’t enough to keep him from falling backwards, wasn’t enough to stop the back of his head from hitting the wall with a sharp crack. Colored dots smeared across his vision, and for a long moment, everything seemed quiet and far away, the screaming of the alarms, the orders the Marshal was shouting—he felt Iskra’s hand on his shoulder, Iskra’s shocked voice calling his name. LOCCENT seemed to rock sickeningly back and forth.

            Then there was a sudden screaming noise of metal and concrete rending, and Ral was falling sideways again, eyes blurring, ears screaming. He hit the ground hard on his hands and knees, and found that he was staring very hard at what looked like a blood spatter. Some part of him vaguely tried to refer back to some reading material about viscosity and fluids and spatter patterns, but he couldn’t quite grasp it, and now probably wasn’t the time anyway.

            There was quite a lot of noise and screaming and the sound of people running. Ral blinked at his hands, trying to clear his head enough to move. “Dr. Zarek,” Iskra said urgently. Then, louder, “ _Ral_.” It was too light, Ral thought distractedly, the blue glow of LOCCENT’s screens cut by a sudden bright gold. Somehow, he managed to scramble to his feet.

            The ceiling was gone. Ral stared up in horror at the looming figure of the kaiju above them. In the golden wintry afternoon light, it was deceptively delicate, a vast sinuous form draped with some kind of glowing web that almost looked like a veil, which drooped down from the points of two curving-downward horns. There were little tendrils at each of the knots of the webbing, waving gently in some rhythm of their own. Small for a kaiju, but still large enough to do untold damage without a Jaeger there to protect them, it undulated slightly, the tendrils questing out like little fingers. A net of sensors, most likely; a much greater capacity for sensory processing could explain how easily the monster had avoided Vital Force.

            “Under the table,” Ral told Iskra hoarsely, and she didn’t protest, but somehow he still automatically put an arm out to shoo her under there. As if a table would protect them. _Fuck_ , he thought, and he didn’t bother to follow. _I am so going to die_. And yet, simultaneously, he couldn’t help but breathe in an awed gasp, because, _god_ , it was beautiful.

            A ripple of muscles began; the kaiju coiled itself tighter, like a snake preparing to strike. Any moment now, their world would be wiped out—everything Ral knew, all the data they’d just gathered, all of the scraps and bits and pieces that they desperately needed in this damn war. It was infuriating and horrifying, both.

            The muscles tightened; the kaiju struck. Ral didn’t close his eyes.

            And then, in a blur of steel and seawater, just before the blow could hit home and pulverize the rest of LOCCENT, Paragon was there. The Rhokas’ Jaeger surged out of nowhere, barely managing to intercept the kaiju in time. Metal and the monster screamed in unison, a horrific discordant chorus. Ral let out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. “Jesus,” he said limply. His hands were trembling.

            Still shrieking, the kaiju thrashed; instead of attempting to hit it, Paragon was simply holding on grimly, squeezing tighter and tighter with its hands. From this close, Ral could see that there was a dark hole in the Jaeger’s back, puckered outward like the exit wound of a bullet. There was a small smear of red at the edge. The Rhokas usually tried to utilize speed above brute force, but there was nothing speedy about their actions now; they looked like nothing so much as a man trying to crush a snake between his two palms.

            “ _Wow_ ,” Iskra said, from under the table.

            “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Ral told her. Paragon was moving erratically, and they still didn’t know what had caused its team to lose contact with LOCCENT in the first place. Even as they watched, though, Paragon lifted the kaiju clear of the shallow water and threw it along the shore. The tremor of its impact was like a miniature earthquake, and the kaiju made a pained noise; it was limping as it rose, its movements clumsy and weak.

            Paragon pressed its advantage almost immediately, delivering a boneshattering blow with its left hand, although it was slewing sideways a little, as if the right side—Kallist’s side—were sluggish compared with Jace’s. What was going on in the Drift right now, Ral wondered. Were they losing the handshake? On the face of it, the Jaeger appeared mostly undamaged, but it had taken enough damage in a sufficiently vital area for LOCCENT to lose contact. That suggested an unnerving amount of precision in the first hit. Ral tried to bring Paragon’s blueprints to mind, but he didn’t know the full layout well enough. Still, just based on the events of the past few hours, they needed either greater redundancy or greater distribution in some of the circuits.

            There were going to be a _hell_ of a lot of questions after this clusterfuck. At least that meant Ral wasn’t out of a job, he supposed, and wasn’t _that_ a fucking morbid thought.

            Across the sand, Paragon had landed another blow, but it was definitely starting to flag, its steps turning halting and uneven. Fortunately, it looked as if the kaiju had had enough as well. Injured, its fine sensory veil torn, it staggered backward towards the ocean, making a pathetic mewling noise. Paragon took two more steps toward it, then halted, and it dove beneath the waves and was gone, leaving behind only a trail of bubbles and some slick black blood rising to the surface. The Jaeger stood, arms hanging loosely at its side, staring out after it, then turned back towards the eviscerated Shatterdome.

            Ral paused for a moment and then ran toward it, Iskra following close behind. Marshal Tirel met them as Paragon stumbled to a halt in front of LOCCENT. Steam vented as someone inside activated the doors.

            “ _Neural handshake at ninety-five percent_ ,” said the pleasant male voice of the AI. It was interrupted by a ragged gasp. Jace’s voice. “Kallist needs medical right away!” Ral spared a moment to be pleased with himself for having been correct that Kallist was in trouble, before he, Tirel, and Iskra stopped and Paragon finished opening.

            The sour smell of kaiju blood mixed with something rank rolled out. Jace Rhoka stood on his side of the Jaeger, spattered with fluid down his right side. On the other side—“Jesus,” Ral said again, quietly. _Medical isn’t going to be much use right now_ , he thought. And yet—“ _Neural handshake at ninety-three percent_ ,” Paragon told them, and Ral’s mouth dropped open.

            Kallist Rhoka’s torso was essentially gone. The sole hit that Martial Paragon had taken from the kaiju, right at the beginning when it dropped from communication, had clearly passed through the entire Jaeger, punching a comparatively small hole—but what was a small injury for a Jaeger was large for a human. Rhoka’s arms and head were still entangled in the complex web that made up the Jaeger interface, but his chest ended in a ragged, bloody tear. The jagged shard of a broken rib protruded from the bottom.

            “Kallist needs help,” his brother was pleading, trying to extricate himself from his side.

            “I—think he’s a little beyond that,” Ral found himself responding this time, and his eyes locked for a moment with the other Rhoka brother. Jace’s blue eyes widened, and his head whipped to the side.

            “Kallist?” he said. “But—he’s right—”

            “ _Neural handshake at thirty percent and falling._ ”

            Jace’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped like a stone. Tirel and Ral reached his side at the same moment, clambering forward to make their way into the now-quiescent Jaeger. Spattered with what had to be his brother’s blood, Jace appeared uninjured, although he now lolled unconscious in the restraints.

            _“Neural handshake at zero percent._ ”

            “What the fuck?” Ral said stupidly.

            “Iskra, isn’t it?” Marshal Tirel said over her shoulder. “Go alert Dr. Tandris immediately. Jace needs help.”

            Iskra, eyes wide, nodded.


	2. Loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace wakes up without Kallist.

            “ _Just hold on. We’ll get you to Medical as soon as we’ve run the kaiju off.”_

_“Concerned, Jace? Maybe that kissing-cousins reporter was right after all.”_

_“Shut up, asshole.”_

_They wince at the impact as Jace slams Paragon’s arm into the screaming kaiju. No, as_ they _slam Paragon’s arm into the screaming kaiju. The neural handshake wobbles, then stabilizes._

_“What the hell was that?” Jace snaps._

_“Sorry,” Kallist’s mental voice comes back slightly muted. “I’ll be fine. Just go after her.”_

_She’s making for the ocean. If she reaches it, she’s going to get away. But any longer and Kallist might be in serious danger. “We can’t,” Jace says quietly. “We can’t afford to gamble on you. We can’t afford to gamble on Paragon.”_

_A harsh mental obscenity. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay. Back to the Shatterdome, then. Vital Force can mop up the mess.”_

_Jace’s vision is blurring, and he doesn’t understand why. Other than that hit at the beginning, it hasn’t been an overly taxing fight. Kallist is hurt—yeah—but he’s been hurt before. Both of them have._

_“Let’s hope we’re not grounded for too long,” Kallist mutters. The neural handshake shivers again; Jace’s vision shudders almost in time with it._

_“Keep it together,” he snaps to Kallist. “We can’t lose the Drift yet.”_

_“I changed my mind, I think I want to sleep for a week.”_

_And they’re at the Dome. Jace slams his—their right hand down on the button to open the hatch._

_“Neural handshake at ninety-five percent,” Paragon tells them helpfully._

_“Kallist needs medical right away!” Jace snaps. Marshal Tirel and two of the scientists—Zarek and his intern—are standing outside, bloodied but upright. Staring at them. Why are they staring?_

_“Neural handshake at ninety-three percent.” Blinding pain lances through Jace’s head, and he can’t tell if it’s from his side or Kallist’s._

_“Kallist needs help!” His voice is rising. Why the hell aren't they doing anything?_

_It’s Zarek who answers, mouth opening as if he doesn’t realize he’s even talking. “I think he’s a little beyond that.”_

_That doesn’t make any sense. Zarek is talking as if Kallist is—_

_“What? He’s right—”_

_“I’m sorry, Jace,” murmurs Kallist’s voice, and it seems to be coming from very far away. “I wondered why I could only feel your half of Beefslab…”_

_Jace looks to the side, to where Kallist should be standing, to the blood-spattered harness where the kaiju appendage has punched right through. “Kallist!” he screams, or thinks he screams, because Kallist’s mental fingers were right there and now—now—_

_“Neural handshake at thirty percent and falling.”_

_And now they’re gone._

_And Jace is gone as well._

            Jace opened his eyes with a cry, dragging himself into the light. He sat up in the skinny medbay cot to find an IV drip in his arm and Dr. Emmara Tandris bending over him.

            “Kallist—” he said wildly.

            “Lie down,” Emmara said firmly. “I don’t want to have to sedate you again, Jace, but I will.”

            Had he been sedated? His memory took him to the end of the fight with the kaiju, to the moment of the door opening and to the feeling of Kallist suddenly—going out like a light in his head. And that was it; that was all she wrote. “Kallist,” he said again. “Is he really—”

            The pinch in Emmara’s expression told him everything he needed to know.

            “Oh, god,” Jace said, resting his head in his hands. He could still feel the barest brush of Kallist’s mind at the edge of his, that was the worst part. Drift hangover. Like a phantom limb sensation, and just as painful. “I wasn’t careful enough,” he said numbly. “We never saw it coming. I don’t—I don’t even know what happened. He was there, and then—then he wasn’t.”

            “You held Kallist in the Drift for over forty minutes after his heart stopped, according to Paragon’s readouts,” Emmara told him gently.

            “Was stopping all it did?” Jace asked bitterly. “I thought it was more like it was punched out of his body.” He laughed, tinged with an edge of hysteria. “He was _blown apart_ , and neither of us noticed. How is that even _possible_?”

            Emmara shook her head. “I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. But the two of you saved the Shatterdome. Vital Force didn’t make it back until twenty minutes after you did—if you hadn’t been here to stop the kaiju, we’d all be dead.”

            “It shouldn’t have happened like that,” Jace burst out, curling his fists in the sheets. “She was a Category _One_!”

            Emmara shook her head. “She’s been upgraded to a Category Three.”

            “What, because we were incompetent?”

            “Because, according to Dr. Zarek, her sensory organs must have been far past anything we’ve dealt with before. She was using tactics you weren’t expecting. Yes, you made a mistake, but so did all of us.”

            “Ranger,” said a quiet voice from the doorway, and Jace looked up to see Marshall Tirel standing in the doorway. “Yes, you and Kallist were careless. So was I. We received a sharp lesson. It could have been a great deal worse.”

            Jace didn’t want to hear that, but he wasn’t about to gainsay her. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.

            “You’ll be out of commission for an indeterminate amount of time, I’m afraid,” she told him. “We have new rangers coming in to take over Paragon in the meantime.”

            Jace nodded tiredly. It would take some time for Kallist’s thoughts to ebb out of his head, and his own strength had always lain in the Drift itself. They would need to find someone with whom he was compatible, wait for him to recover—it made sense to bring in someone new for Paragon. Jace himself might never have to set foot in a Jaeger again, and that thought brought with it a strange admixture of relief and bone-deep sorrow. Not only would he never see Kallist again, never feel that sensation of fitting together with the cousin he’d known his whole life, he might never feel the humming confidence of Paragon at his back. He might never Drift again, with anyone.

            “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered again, because how could he be so selfish? He, at least, was alive. But the Drift itself had always meant more to Jace than most people he knew, and having that stripped away as well, knowing he was condemned to be trapped in his own head with only himself for company—he shuddered. It was like going blind.

            “Jace,” the Marshal said, and he looked up again, trying to keep his expression free of the exhaustion and hopelessness he was feeling. “I know what it’s like,” she told him, and Jace swallowed, remembering that she had been a pilot herself until her copilot had been killed by Pharaoh, the first of the Category Fives.

            “Thanks,” he managed, and she nodded and was gone.

~

            Ral growled to himself, chewing on a pencil that he really used more for that than as a writing implement, as he sifted carefully through Martial Paragon's sensor readouts again. The new sensors they’d installed had been enough for it not to be tricked the way Vital Force had been, but not enough to avoid the lightning-fast initial hit. And Force had been closer to where the newest kaiju emerged from the Breach. Had the kaiju actually targeted Paragon for that reason? Was that a reasonable hypothesis, or had it just been a lucky hit?

            Damn lucky hit. No, the location of the strike itself, precise enough to punch right through one of Paragon's few but necessary less-armored joints, said that the hit, at least, had been intentional, though he couldn’t say for sure if the target had been.

            “Um, excuse me—Dr. Zarek?”

            Ral sighed at the interruption. “Yeah?” He swiveled his chair round and stared. Out of his uniform, Jace Rhoka cut a very different figure. He was wearing a soft blue hoody over jeans, which made him look as if he was right out of college, and it occurred to Ral that he didn’t actually know how old the ranger was. His long dark hair flopped awkwardly into his face, and the grace that Ral had seen in him when he and his cousin piloted Paragon was entirely absent.

            “I was told you know the computer system pretty well?”

            Babysitting duty, huh? Well, Ral was the newest member of the Science Team. It would be just like Mizzet to assign him busy work. Why was a ranger asking about the computer system, though? Ral shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

            “I’m having issues with my login credentials—it turns out if you haven’t logged in for months, the system locks you out. I was supposed to get an email about it, but I either didn’t, or I accidentally deleted it. And I need back on so I can look through the data from Paragon.”

            “Do you need your old stuff? It’ll be easier to just set you up with a new account.”

            “It would be better if I could get to it? I was working on a few theories that I’d like to be able to review—things just got a little too crazy in there.”

            “Theories?” Ral’s ears pricked up. “I didn’t realize—”

            Jace smiled ruefully. “I was all set to get my PhD in neuroscience a few years ago,” he said quietly. “I was working on some experiments about Drift compatibility, and I got, well, more spectacular results than expected. My cousin was mad about joining the Rangers for a long time, and he convinced me that together, we could—do a lot of good. I guess I wonder, sometimes, though, whether I’d have been better off continuing the research full time.”

            “I’m up on the literature,” Ral said sharply. “Why haven’t I read any of your papers?”

            “Um.” Jace flushed slightly. “I publish under Beleren—maybe you’ve—”

            “You’re J. _Beleren_?” Ral frowned. “Yeah, I’ve read your stuff. A little removed from my area, but it’s good. Why the name shift? Wait, you and Rhoka weren’t _actually_ married, right?” Ral might have to have his head examined if the _National Enquirer_ had gotten something _right_.

            “Oh, god, no.” Jace shook his head. “No, but we weren’t brothers either, although we might as well have been. Cousins. We grew up together. He thought that if we said we were brothers, they’d take us more seriously at the trials. Kallist was like that—always looking for an edge.” His brows drew inwards at that, and Ral sat awkwardly, not really sure how to respond. He could still see the look on Jace’s face as he turned to the side and saw the mangled body of his copilot.

            “Uh,” Ral said, after the long moment turned longer. “If you don’t mind waiting, I should be able to get the permissions back on your account.” He still didn’t like to take the time away from his research, but it seemed like they were both going to be working on a similar project anyway. He could probably use someone to bounce ideas off of.

            “Thanks,” Jace said, leaning stiffly against the wall.

            “There’s, uh, an extra chair,” Ral nodded to his side. “If you want to sit.”

            There was a minute pause, then Jace made an assenting noise and gingerly crossed the room and lowered himself into the chair. Ral sighed and started digging his way through account permissions crap.

            “Actually, I’ve, um, I’ve read some of your papers as well,” Jace said after about ten minutes.

            “Oh yeah?” Ral asked, then swore at the computer. “I’m in _sudo_ , you fucking machine, you can’t tell _me_ I don’t have read permissions!”

            “Damn, that’s one persistent computer.” Jace briefly glanced over Ral’s shoulder. “I’ve thought a lot about some of the sensor work you’ve done. I think it’s brilliant. I also think it could probably be integrated better with the Drift circuits. The biggest problem that K-Kallist and I had with the new sensors was the delay.” The little wobble in his voice made Ral look up awkwardly again. “Sorry,” Jace said, wiping a tear from his eye. “I’m stupid. Sorry.”

            This was one hundred percent not Ral’s area, but he managed to reach out and put a hand on the other man’s arm. “I dunno,” he drawled. “Some of the theory in those papers of yours would have been pretty hard to do if you were stupid. Not as smart as me, maybe.”

            Jace gave him an incredulous look, and then a small smile. “Um, so, anyway.”

            “Yeah. The sensor work. If you’re seeing a delay, that’s definitely something that needs worked on. The sensors are pretty complex, but initial tests didn’t suggest anything that would’ve made a serious difference to the pilots.”

            “Well,” Jace hedged. “Um. Paragon’s Drift is a little more complex than the other Jaegers. It’s possible that it’s an interface issue, not the sensor software itself.”

            “Paragon’s Drift isn’t standard?” Ral asked. “Why the fuck did we install the sensors on there first, then?” But he knew why. Paragon had the highest kill count, so Paragon clearly needed to get the new tech before anyone else. “Ugh. Meatheads,” he grunted, momentarily forgetting who he was sitting next to.

            But Jace just shrugged. “I told them not to,” he said. “I guess I didn’t try too hard, though. Kallist—really wanted to try them out.” Ral shifted uncomfortably as Jace pressed his hands to his eyes again. “I just—I can’t really believe he’s gone,” Jace blurted in a hollow voice. “The Drift hangover’s not gone yet; I keep dreaming about all the shit we used to get up to as kids from both of our perspectives, and it’s _killing_ me.”

            Ral, about to try and offer some entirely useless platitude for comfort, paused. “You _still_ have a Drift hangover?” he echoed, doing some quick mental calculations. “Even after ten days?”

            “I know,” Jace sighed. “It’s weird, but I’m not evincing any major abnormalities, and I’m—well, I’m not a pilot anymore, I’m no one’s major concern.”

            “Seriously?” Ral snapped angrily. “Isn’t this, like, _literally_ your thing?”

            Jace chewed on his lip. “I’m rusty,” he said softly. “And—I—I—” He seemed to be on the verge of a confession when he paused, pursing his lips. “No, you know what? You’re right. Hey—if I help you out with the sensors, will you help me out with some Drift work?”

            Ral thought about this for a moment. Multiple projects could be a distraction, but on the other hand, he often worked better if he could get a break when he got stuck. “Yeah, sure,” he said, then looked back at the computer, where the command line had finally returned without throwing an error. “Fucking _finally_ ,” he growled. “I’ve got your account back.”


	3. Bonds of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace chooses his successors.

            _Masonry crumbles, and the ground is shaking. Jace falls to his knees, covering the back of his head with his hands. A high-pitched noise tears through his ears, and the world shivers in front of his eyes. There’s smoke in the air, and something is roaring loudly. He’s got to get out of here. He forces himself to look up, trying to find a path away._

 _“Mom?” he says softly, but there’s no answer, and there’s no time. There’s a_ thing _rising above the buildings, and it’s like every monster in every made-for-TV movie he and his cousin have ever watched together, laughing, fighting over the popcorn and the remote—it’s got an axe protruding from its forehead, and its mouth is glowing, and it’s huge, so huge—_

_And he’s scrambling to his feet and running and running and—_

With a gasp, Jace sat up. He was bathed in cold sweat, shuddering, taking huge breaths. And the next moment, he almost wanted to reach his way back to the memory, because that hadn’t been his memory, it had been Kallist’s. Jace hadn’t been in San Francisco when Trespasser first surfaced, but Kallist had. Kallist and Jace’s aunt and uncle, and somehow Kallist had made it out, but his parents hadn’t. Jace still remembered sitting in front of the television, staring at the grainy footage of Trespasser, his knees pulled into his chest, as his parents rushed from room to room and talked on the phone a lot.

            The entire world had changed that day, but, more than that, _Jace’s_ world had changed, because that was when his cousin had come to live with them. It had been a mess at first. Kallist was alternately quiet and withdrawn and loud and abrasive; he got in fights at school or he wouldn’t go to school at all, and Jace didn’t know how to help. He was trying to adjust to having another person sharing his room and deal with the fact that his aunt and uncle were dead and not to bother his stressed-out parents, all at the same time. But the two of them had come out stronger for it.

            And now the creatures of their nightmares had surged up one last time and taken Kallist from him as well. Jace leaned forward and pillowed his head on his knees, then looked over at the bright digital clock on his bedside table, which told him it was nearly 7 AM. The empty bed on the other side of the table mocked him, and he sighed. They weren’t going to let him keep this room to himself much longer, and that was just one more piece of Kallist slipping through his fingers. Not that it was anyone’s fault—Marshal Tirel had already been more than understanding. There just wasn’t the space, especially with the new recruits arriving to try out for the opportunity to pilot Paragon.

            Well, he’d move when they told him and not before. For today, he’d better hustle so that he was able to make it on time to the trials. The Marshal had asked him to attend, ostensibly to evaluate the candidates’ fitness for Paragon, but Jace wondered if she was just trying to make him feel valuable. Either way, with Kallist still lurking in his head, he could probably make some kind of estimate as to their physical adequacy, and with his Drift expertise, he could do much better than that at assessing their mental adequacy, as long as LOCCENT was willing to listen to his recommendation.

            He pulled on casual clothing again—the fewer people who recognized him, the better—splashed some water on his face, and headed out toward the gym.

            The gym was already filling up when he got there, and Jace slipped in the back. He might have joined the other pilots—Chandra and Nissa were holding hands in the front row, Gisa and Geralf of Masterpiece Horde bickering next to them, as they always did. The two of them always acted as if they hated each other, but they were eerily in-sync and their Drift was one of the stronger ones Jace had seen. Maybe now that he didn’t have a Jaeger himself, he’d have a chance to test the origin of that strength, see where it came from. The teams were rounded out with Kaya and Teysa of Ghost Assassin and Narset and Sarkhan of Enlightened Master. At the back of the crowd, frowning as she often was, was Pia Nalaar.

            Instead of going over to them, Jace went to the left and slipped into the back row of the science team. Ral Zarek was leaning lazily against the back wall, and looked up when he saw Jace, but no one else seemed to notice. Ral, though, slouched slightly sideways to make room for him, and Jace joined him with a sense of relief. They’d spent an hour or two the previous day working together—mostly on the sensor stuff, somewhat to Jace’s relief, since he wasn’t looking forward to forcing his brain directly back into neuroscience mode without something someone could help him with first—and it was good. Too early to say much, but they worked well together. And--it was something new and different and distracting. Jace needed that.

            The Marshal was addressing them all and probably saying something very stirring and hopeful, but Jace really didn’t feel like listening too closely, since it would either be something nice about him, which would make him feel like a fraud, or something nice about Kallist, which would just make him want to cry again. Instead he leaned across to Ral and murmured, “Have you seen the candidates yet?”

            Ral nodded across the gym. “I’m surprised they have three available Drift-compatible teams at short notice,” he murmured back. “There’s two married women, two others I don’t have a clue about, and a father-daughter team.” Jace followed Ral’s nod across the gym. The married women were easy to pick out; they held themselves like Chandra and Nissa, hand-in-hand, their bodies curving towards each other. The other two women were harder to read—Jace wouldn’t necessarily have guessed Drift compatibility from the way the closed-in woman with straight white hair stood beside her dark-haired companion, but then both of them were closed-off, blank-faced, giving nothing away. Beside them, a girl—she couldn’t be much more than eighteen—with bleached-white hair and eyes outlined dark with eyeliner leaned against a sturdy-looking older man, who kept a protective arm around her shoulder.

            Jace wasn’t sure he agreed that it was strange—it was easier to find a pair of people who were Drift-compatible than it was to build a Jaeger—but on the other hand, he supposed, there hadn’t exactly been a lot of time to recruit. He wondered what exactly Tirel was planning to be evaluating them on, when the woman in question finished speaking, looked up, and gave him a long nod, followed by a _come-here_ gesture. Shit.

            With a sad little sigh, Jace got up and made his way to the front, trying not to be aware of the number of people who were staring at him. “Marshal?” he asked.

            “As I’m sure you all know, this is Jace Rhoka,” Tirel said to the crowd, and Jace felt his stomach turning over, because—he wasn’t Rhoka anymore, he was Beleren, wasn’t he? And yet the echo of Kallist’s mind still floated on the edge of his, the Drift hangover still stubbornly clinging to the crevices of his soul—or maybe he was clinging to it. Tirel was still talking, and Jace wrenched himself back to the present, trying to stand in a way that would telegraph ‘confident Jaeger pilot’ rather than ‘emotional mess one breath away from a breakdown.’

            “There’s no one alive who knows Paragon better than Jace—” Jace winced, certain that the Marshal hadn’t intended the way his heart sank when she said that, “—so you’ll have to impress him. This trial isn’t just about being the best pilots, and it’s not just about being the most compatible with one another. Martial Paragon is an unusual beast, and there’s no shame in not being selected, because what we are looking for is the team who will best be able to handle this specific Jaeger.”

            Jace shuffled, now strongly wishing that the clothes he had thrown on were something that looked even halfway like a Jaeger pilot rather than a college kid who’d flung himself out of bed and rolled into what he’d worn the day before. The fact that he _had_ flung himself out of bed and rolled into what he’d been wearing the day before did not help.

            “Marshal,” he murmured. “Surely I’m not the only person who can make this decision? I know Paragon, but I—I’m not really a combatant in some ways.”

            “We’re looking for a team who are likeliest to be compatible with Paragon,” Tirel said steadily. “I have confidence that your opinion is valuable, but I assure you it is not the sole deciding factor.” With which statement Jace supposed he would have to be content.

            The speech over, the candidates began their demonstration. Jace tried hard to focus, but it was difficult for him to really think about what would make an appropriate match for Paragon. He was an unusual Jaeger, to say the least, with the Drift modifications and the recently introduced highly-sensitive sensors.

            All three sets of candidates were clearly highly compatible in their own ways. The married women almost seemed to be playing a game together, trading smiles as easily as they traded blows. It was a beautiful lighthearted dance, and Jace couldn’t stand to keep watching. He and Kallist used to move exactly the same way, and on the one hand, that could be good—Paragon would be _used_ to it, the two of them would be able to move through pathways already charted by Jace and Kallist with ease. And yet—Jace shook his head minutely at Tirel. Kallist had _died_ in Paragon, and for forty minutes his thought patterns had remained; there had been no real way for Jace to test how that had changed the Drift, but his impressions of the final hellish moments when the Drift was destabilizing remained in his head. He couldn’t imagine Paragon hadn’t been affected as well.

            The second team was also very good; while Jace had no strong feelings against them, he had no strong feelings for them, either. Hopefully the small shrug he gave the Marshal would communicate that stance well enough.

            It was the final team, the father-daughter team, that made him pause. There was an intensity in the daughter, a determination; her father was clearly more cautious than she was, but she pulled him along, forced him to take risks Jace didn’t think he would have taken if she hadn’t been there. At one level, it was almost an uneven performance, but it tugged at Jace’s heartstrings. Because her father wasn’t doing it unwillingly. Jace blinked hard against the sudden tears. He tried to hear Kallist’s voice, teasing him for losing it, but he couldn’t call up anything more than a soft murmur. _I’m losing him_.

            “Ranger?” Tirel said to him softly.

            Jace nodded. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Those two. I—those two. Do you need me for anything else, Marshal?”

            She shook her head. “Not for now. Thank you, Jace.”

            The “you’re welcome,” came out automatically. One hand went up to tug his hoody down over his face. “I—” Jace waved a hand back towards Dr. Zarek. “There are some things I—need to discuss with, um, with some of the Science Team.”

            “Nothing to be concerned about?” Tirel queried, and Jace shook his head, staring at his feet.

            “No,” he said, quietly. “I’m fine.”

            “Go on,” she told him. “And, Jace?” He forced a neutral expression onto his face as he turned to look at her. “Thank you,” she said quietly.


	4. Elixir of Vitality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ral requires coffee, and the new Jaeger pilots are introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for minor homophobia/bi erasure.

            There was wood underneath Ral’s cheek, and his mouth was dry and sour. “Dr. Zarek?”

            Ugh. He’d fallen asleep at his desk again. Blindly, Ral felt for his coffee cup. After a few days, he’d managed to train Iskra not to wake him up if she hadn’t already filled it up. His hand hit the side, but the coffee cup was cold. “Mffffuck,” Ral mumbled. “Where’s m’coffee?”

            “Um.” Ral’s brain was not firing on all cylinders, but it was firing enough by now to recognize that that wasn’t Iskra’s voice. With an effort, he peeled his eyelids back and reached for his amphetamines instead of the coffee. “Sorry, you look…wrecked.” Jace shifted uncomfortably.

            “Didn’ get to bed,” Ral managed, clawing sadly and rather ineffectively at the cap of his medication. “Whad’you want?”

            “Uh, well—are you sure you shouldn’t just be going to bed?”

            Ral glared. “If you’re going to ask me something, just fucking ask,” he groaned. “My back hurts, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t finish the coding I was doing last night _anyway_. Now what the hell did you want?”

            “Well—it’s just.” Jace sighed. “Pia always asks the rangers to coffee once every two weeks, and I figured she just—wouldn’t ask me, but she did, and I, uh—I don’t want to go alone?”

            “Why _me_? Don’t you have anyone else to babysit you?”

            “Fuck you,” Jace said tiredly. “Who else was I going to ask? I don’t _know_ anyone else other than the rangers. Should I have walked into the Marshal’s office and asked _her_?”

            “Was she awake?” Ral groaned and put a hand to his head. “Sorry, sorry. My head is fucking killing me. All right, I’ll come, just—give me a minute.”

            Coffee. Maybe he’d better put off the amphetamines for a bit. Ral groaned again, yawned, and stumbled upright, making his way mainly by feel over to the restroom that adjoined the computer lab, where he splashed water on his face. A few minutes later, much wetter, but largely not any more awake, he staggered out. “I can barely keep my eyes open,” he grumbled to Jace. “Let me have your arm, or ’m gonna walk into every wall on the way to wherever we’re going.”

            Several minutes later, Jace had tucked Ral safely into one of the larger booths in the cafeteria, or one of the cafeterias. In his early-morning haze, he wasn’t able to call to mind the outline of the Shatterdome, and instead, he slumped forward over his arms.

            “Here.” Jace pushed a cup of steaming-hot coffee at him, and Ral perked up enough to avoid actually face-planting in it.

            “Thanks,” he mumbled, as he began to sip it. He generally preferred coffee with milk and sugar, but he’d learned during his five years of graduate school to choke down whatever presented itself. Surprisingly, this wasn’t actually that terrible. Either Iskra had been holding out on him, or she was just not very good at determining the quality of coffee.

            “G’morning, Jace!” someone said cheerfully, sliding into the booth on the other side of the table. “Who’s this?”

            Ral peeled his eyelids up again. It was marginally easier this time. Chandra Nalaar and her wife Nissa Revane had taken seats across from him—and Jace, who was apparently sitting next to him. How about that.

            “Oh, um, Nissa, Chandra, this is Dr. Zarek, from the Science Team. Ral—Nissa, Chandra.”

            “’Lo,” Ral mumbled. He considered trying to offer his hand and then decided he would probably knock over his coffee if he did. It was definitely going to require more than one cup of coffee for him to wake up today. Determinedly, he made his way through the first cup as more and more people trickled in to sit at the table.

            “Sorry, uh, Dr. Zarek isn’t really a morning person,” he heard Jace say apologetically, which was definitely the understatement of the year. _What time did I fall asleep?_ he wondered vaguely. Oh, well. Didn’t really matter.

            “More coffee?” he said hopefully, interrupting what sounded like a loud squabble from whoever was sitting beside Chandra and Nissa.

            “You can have mine,” Jace told him, and Ral looked at him sideways.

            “Quite the sacrifice,” he drawled, and Jace blinked at him and gave him a small smile.

            “Thanks for coming,” he murmured.

            “Thanks for coffee.” Ral yawned. “Sorry for the—” he waved a hand, “—um, growling.”

            “It’s okay, Kallist wasn’t great in the morning either.”

            It felt weird to be compared to someone who was dead. Ral was not convinced that he liked it, but he shrugged and started working on the second cup of coffee. Somewhere halfway through, he realized he was capable of tuning in on the conversation, which was definitely a step in the right direction.

            “That last kill was _entirely_ due to me,” sniffed the black-haired man beside Nissa.

            “Bull _shit_ ,” muttered the woman beside him; she grinned widely when he glared at her. “Oh, really, crankypants, if you think you’d be getting _anywhere_ without me—”

            “I’d be on the _Science Team_. I’d be up to my elbows in _science_ —”

            “Kaiju brains,” muttered the woman. She was his sister? Ral was pretty sure of that.

            “What’s wrong with kaiju brains?”

            “Guys. Please. It’s too early for this shit,” groaned Chandra. “Jace, how are you holding up?”

            “Hm?” Jace looked up from where he had been apparently staring at his fingers. “I’m fine.”

            “Convincing,” Ral muttered, possibly a little too loudly, because Jace turned to the side and gave him a steady glare. He coughed. “Uh, can I have some more sugar?”

            “We understand if this is difficult for you, Jace,” Nissa said quietly, and Jace’s shoulders hunched forward a little more.

            “I’m _fine_ ,” he said again.

            “Hi, can we join you?” It was the two new rangers. It was the daughter who’d actually asked the question, her father hovering behind her, quieter and less energetic. “Sure!” Chandra said. “Who wants to scoot over?”

            “There’s room on our side,” Jace said, sliding toward the right.

            “Ow,” Ral said irritably as Jace went a little too far and shoved him into the wall. “Watch it.”

            “Sorry.” Jace hunched forward, his hands closing around air in a way that suggested he was feeling for the cup of coffee he’d given Ral. Ral scooted sideways and moved his arm up to the back of the booth, giving them both a little more room. Jace shot him a sudden, surprised smile.

            “I’m Avacyn Markov, and this is my father, Sorin.”

            She looked about sixteen, Ral thought grumpily, although he knew she couldn’t be under eighteen. But what kind of eighteen-year-old dyed her hair white and put on _that_ much makeup? She and her father were both dressed entirely in black, so maybe it was just a case of hereditarily awful taste.

            “Nice to formally meet you,” Jace said, sounding awkward.

            “I’m _so_ happy to meet you, too!” Avacyn gushed. “You and Kallist are, like, the reason I wanted to become a pilot in the first place!”

            Oh, this was going to go well, Ral thought. Jace still spent half his time in the lab sighing sadly whenever anything reminded him of Kallist, which, okay, Ral had never had his best friend die in his head, that probably did a number on you. But it galled that there was nothing he could do, and this was going to make everything worse. As he’d expected, Jace flinched slightly.

            “Um, thanks?” he said, softly.

            Ugh. He was not going to be able to concentrate at all, and Ral was going to have to _comfort_ him. Ral was terrible at comforting. He leaned sideways. “I like your makeup,” he lied loudly, and Avacyn blinked and blushed and smiled.

            “Yeah? Thanks. I know it’s a little weird for a pilot, but it’s kind of therapeutic?”

            Ral nodded in a way he hoped looked convincing; to his surprise, Jace unbent a little.

            “I, um, used to do theater a little, actually,” he said with a smile. “A long time ago. I used to really like getting into costume, getting all the makeup on. It made me feel, well, brave.”

            Avacyn’s smile grew wider, and Ral shrugged to himself. Well, better than the alternative, right? The girl giggled. “I keep trying to tell Dad he should try it too!”

            “Why don’t we have a sleepover sometime?” Chandra said eagerly. “You know, all the girls, and I guess Jace can come because he’s gay—”

            “Okay, firstly, I’m bi, secondly, there’s _so_ many things wrong with that statement,” Jace sighed. “But, um, a sleepover party sounds…nice?”

            Chandra stuck her tongue out. “Yeah, sorry, that didn’t come out great.” She scratched the back of her head. “But it’d be fun, right?”

            “I’d _love_ something like that!” Avacyn clasped her hands. “Oh, Dad, can we?”

            Avacyn’s father had been rather silent up until now, but at Avacyn’s enthusiasm, his rather sour face split with a small smile, and he gave her a nod. “If you’d like that.”

            “I could organize something for the weekend?” Revane put in, the first words Ral thought she had spoken the entire morning.

            Avacyn nodded eagerly, then ducked her head and looked around at the others. “I mean, if you’d all like that?” she said hesitantly.

            “Everyone will be there,” Chandra said. “I have decreed it.” She reached out and skewered a piece of bacon. “Don’t even try,” she said, shaking her fork at Geralf, who was frowning and had opened his mouth. “We all need something fun to take our minds off of Villainess.”

            “Villainess?” asked Sorin.

            “The newest kaiju.” Chandra shoved the bacon into her mouth. “What? She needed a name, and she’s a bitch. Hey, who wants to bet Nissa and I kill her next time she shows up? I’ll put twenty bucks on us.”

            Sorin smiled predatorily. “You are on,” he said. “Avacyn and I have Paragon, after all.”

            Gisa squealed from the other side of the table. “Us too!”

            “Gisa, you know you always make us lose these,” Geralf said petulantly.

            Beside Ral, Jace sighed and looked down at his hands. “I’ll put twenty dollars on me and Jace,” Ral said, breaking into the conversation. “If the sensors end up being the deciding factor in taking her out. You boneheads can’t take all the credit yourselves.”

            There was a sudden, brief hush, and then Chandra grinned. “It’s a deal,” she said, sticking her hand out to Ral across the table, and Nissa gave a small smile and what Ral thought was probably an approving nod.


	5. Imagecrafter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace has his nails painted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mild gender-stereotype clumsiness and suicidal thoughts.

            The room was warm, almost hot, and loud with chatter. Jace shifted awkwardly from his position against the wall; he still didn’t feel entirely at home at functions that were mostly for the Jaeger pilots. He wasn’t sure if that was because of the fact that he felt terribly alone in comparison with all the pairs of people, or if it was because he—didn’t feel as alone as he thought he should have. As some part of him said he ought to be.

            _You have to let him go_ , said the part of his mind that still remembered being sent to a grief counselor after Kallist’s parents’ deaths. But there was that treacherous other part, the part of his mind that only Kallist himself had really known about, that murmured to him that he could follow. _You don’t have to wait until he really fades into a memory,_ it said, and the brief, hollow echo of Kallist’s frustrated voice responded, _Don’t be stupid, Jace._

Jace shivered. He was pretty sure that it wasn’t a good sign when your dead cousin was arguing with your suicidal impulses.

            “Hey!” Avacyn bounced up to him and gave him a bright smile, and it wasn’t even that difficult for Jace to smile back. She was wearing oversized pajamas with little skulls printed on them. The skulls had pink bows on their heads, and Jace found himself wondering what purpose a bow served on something that didn’t have hair.

            “Um, hi,” he managed.

            “You seemed a little overwhelmed, so I came over to make sure you were okay.” She was also wearing large bunny slippers, and a glance behind her told Jace that Sorin was wearing an identical pair. Jace bit his lip against a chuckle. That was _adorable_.

            “Yeah, I’m—not great with crowds,” he managed to respond.

            Avacyn wrinkled her nose in a gesture that Jace thought was probably intended to be sympathetic. “I don’t think anyone would hold it against you if you took a few minutes to be by yourself?” she suggested, but Jace shook his head.

            “I’m all right, really.”

            “Can I paint your nails, then?”

            Jace blinked at her. “What?”

            Avacyn shrugged, ducking her head in what appeared to be slight embarrassment. “It’s just—everyone else has had their nails done—it’s something I’m good at, and I like doing it, and you—you’re kind of my hero?”

            _What am I, chopped liver?_ Kallist snarked, louder than he had been for days, and Jace had to clamp his lips down over the sudden swell of emotion in his chest. “Oh, uh, well, sure. Thanks.”

            “I promise it will look _amazing_ ,” Avacyn said. “You can pick whatever colors you want, and I’ve got a whole bunch of stencils, if that’s your thing?”

            “What’s a stencil?” Jace asked, in lieu of dealing with any of the myriad emotions currently warring in his brain. “I mean, in this context.”

            “Oh, I’ll show you.” She took his hand, and Jace flushed as she pulled him to his feet. She wasn’t exactly his type, but he couldn’t help but admit that she was attractive. _She’s more my type than yours._

_Like Emmara?_

            But the second thought went unanswered, Kallist’s presence fading suddenly and almost frighteningly. Jace _reached_ into the depths of his mind, because no matter how much he knew he should let go, he just—couldn’t. A shiver of cold ran down his spine, but before he could get too caught up in his head, Avacyn’s warm hands were pressing him down into another chair, and she was pulling out a huge and slightly intimidating basket full of different nail polish colors.

            “These are stencils.” She held up several golden sheets with delicate patterns etched into them. “They make it much easier to do precise art on tiny things like nails. You stamp—” she held up a round piece of featureless artificial material, “—and then you transfer it onto the nail. So just take a look through these and the stuff in the basket and tell me what colors you want and stuff.”

            Awkwardly, Jace rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay,” he agreed. He hadn’t painted his nails in at least five years. The last time, he’d done it himself because Kallist was dragging him to a gay bar, and they’d come out sort of uneven and splattered. Chewing on his lip, he started to sort through the polishes in the basket. They were arranged neatly by color, with a cardboard divider down the center. “What’s this for?”

            “The ones above it are base colors, these ones down here are for overcoats mostly. They’re more glitter or sheen than color,” Avacyn explained. She was sorting through the stencils. “Here, you can look through these as well.”

            “I had no idea there were so many ways to paint your nails,” Jace said, “and I used to think I was pretty—uh—‘girly’ back in the day—for lack of a better term, since it’s not really a gender thing. You know?” He was babbling. “Um. I think I have to hand in my knowing-about-girl-things card. Er.”

            Avacyn grinned. “For lack of a better term?”

            Jace hid his blush by going back to the box of colors. “Here,” he said, pulling out a bright blue, and a bottle of silvery glitter. “How about these?”

            Tilting the bottles up to the light, Avacyn nodded. “Good choice. I’ll get started on your left hand, and you can look through the stencils while I do, okay?”

            “Yeah, sure.” The nail polish was cool and thick against Jace’s fingertips, and Avacyn’s delicate touch sent an odd feeling through Jace’s stomach. It wasn’t exactly sensual—which was good, because he’d rather not make things incredibly awkward if he could avoid it—but he suddenly realized that, since Kallist died, he had physically touched almost no one. Kallist wasn’t a particularly physically intimate person, but Jace was, and they’d spent so much time in each other’s heads that he’d pretty much always known when Jace needed some kind of physical reassurance. The thought sent another sudden stab of pain through Jace’s throat.

            “Hey, Jace, wanna introduce me?” It took Jace a moment to place the young woman who had just bounced up as Ral’s intern, Iskra. She’d added a liberal amount of gel to her short pink-and-blue hair so that it stuck up as if she’d had a close encounter with an electric socket, and she was wearing heavy eye makeup and a tank top, instead of her usual naked face and jeans. “I know Nalaar was mostly asking Jaeger pilots here, but Ral needed to get out of the lab, so I dragged him over. I think he’s been living on coffee and amphetamines for the past forty-eight hours.”

            “Iskra, this is Avacyn. She’s on Martial Paragon’s team,” Jace said. “Avacyn, Iskra. She hangs around the lab and tries to make Dr. Zarek actually sleep on occasion.”

            “It’s nice to meet you!” Avacyn chirped.

            “Fuck, you are _good_ at that,” Iskra said approvingly. “Can you do mine next? Hey—can you do Ral’s?”

            “Just what are you trying to get done to me?” Ral’s sardonic voice drawled. “I should be in bed.” He looked wrecked. When Jace had left the lab several hours ago, Ral had vaguely promised he would take a nap, and Jace frowned, because he evidently hadn’t. His eyes were still bloodshot, chin covered with stubble, and everything about his face was sagging and screaming ‘sleep-deprived.’

            “You should,” Jace said. “Why aren’t you?”

            “I, uh, I may have taken another dose of amphetamines,” Ral said vaguely. “Look, I just wanted to finish the thing I was working on.”

            “You know that occasional sleep is good for your brain, right?”

            Ral fixed him with a tired glare. “Yeah, well.” He yawned. “God, I’m exhausted.”

            Sighing, Jace indicated the chair across from him. “Sit down,” he said. Then, quietly, leaning forward as well as he could without removing his hand from Avacyn’s grasp, “I’m glad you came.”

            Tired grin. Ral patted Jace’s cheek. “You’re welcome, asshole.”

            “Oh, _I’m_ the asshole? I told you to go to sleep!”

            “You’re the one who presented me with a fascinating problem, what did you expect?”

            “That you had a modicum of ability to take care of yourself?”

            “That was your first mistake.”

            “Other hand, please, Jace.” Avacyn set down his hand. “Also you’d better figure out which stencil you want.”

            “Oh, uh,” said Jace. His thoughts had been vaguely going somewhere, but the question derailed them entirely. “Hey, can you do my thumb on this hand in black instead of blue? For—for Kallist.”

            “Of course.” She smiled at him, reaching for a different bottle of polish. “Just keep holding still.

            “So are you going to let Avacyn do your nails?” Jace turned back to Ral as he began digging through the set of stencils.

            “Sure,” Ral yawned. “No point disagreeing with Iskra when she’s got a bee in her bonnet about something. Doubt they’ll last, though, I chew on my nails.”

            “I’m surprised you haven’t poisoned yourself yet,” Jace said wryly. “Ooh.” He paused, looking at one of the stencils. “I like these.” It was a set of swooping, abstract designs, mainly made up of concentric circles stacked within each other. “What are these?” he asked Avacyn, who was frowning down at his third finger in concentration.

            “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I just thought they looked nice. I don’t actually remember where I got those? I know I didn’t order them online. Maybe one of the little shops around where we used to live?”

            “Can we do them in silver? Or maybe white?”

            “Definitely!”

            “I’m thinking red and blue with gold lightning,” Ral said meditatively. “Or maybe a dragon. Maybe both. I like dragons.”

            “I’ve noticed.” Jace nodded to Ral’s left arm, where the tail of something reptilian rippled down the skin from beneath his shirt. “I guess I’ve never asked you what it’s for?”

            “I _really_ like dragons.” Ral grinned. “Also I got it as a celebration after I passed my defense. I think? I was pretty drunk at the time.”

            “Gonna make my nails match my hair,” Iskra put in excitedly. “And I found some extremely sweet kitten stencils! You know my dream is to eventually own ten cats, right?”

            “Yes, I know.” Ral rolled his eyes over to her. “After the third time you dragged me to volunteer at the local animal shelter I managed to clue in. Amazing.”

            “Ten cats that I will take care of with my hypothetical gorgeous girlfriend,” Iskra continued, and her eyes slid sideways to Avacyn as she spoke. Jace recognized the look; he’d used it often enough himself. It was, _hi I’m totally into you, please be gay enough to be into me back_.

            Avacyn bit her lip. “So you’re single?” she said to Iskra.

            Jace covered his mouth to hide his sudden, surprised chuckle; the next moment he was choking and coughing at the smell of not-quite-dried nail polish.

            “Christ, Jace, don’t die over there.” Ral smacked his shoulder awkwardly.

            “Careful!” Avacyn squealed. “You’ll smudge the nail polish!” She took his hand gently away from his mouth. “Oh, okay, we’re good. Also, you’re done, so shoo and let me do the next person.”

            “Iskra, you wanna go next, or do you want me to?” Ral asked.

            “You go,” Iskra said. “And yes, I am tragically very, very single,” she said pointedly to Avacyn, whose smile grew even wider.

            “Want to get coffee sometime?” she asked.

            “Yes, I would very much like to get coffee with you,” Iskra said. “Wow. This was way easier than I was expecting.”

            “Told you just to go for it,” Ral muttered.

            “Oh, like _you_ ever have,” Iskra responded cheerfully.

            “I absolutely have,” Ral told her snootily. “There was, uh, that one guy, you know, when I was in undergrad—”

            “You texted me that you’d asked him if he wanted to have a _study group_ and then he _brought his girlfriend_ ,” Iskra said, and Jace snorted with laughter.

            “I’m straightforward,” Ral said plaintively. “I just have defective gaydar.”

            “I didn’t realize you two had known each other for so long,” Jace put in.

            “Oh, yeah,” Iskra laughed. “He and my sister were best friends in elementary school, and our families were really close. He was the bad influence on both of us.”

            Jace gave Ral a look. “You texted your best friend’s little sister during college?”

            He shrugged. “I helped her out with science. Vinny went into law.”

            “Also, Vinny’s a great sister, but she’s straight, and, like, I guess I needed someone to help me through _that_ whole thing.”

            “Don’t get me started on the sex ed in that place,” Ral drawled. “Your parents should never have sent you to a religious school.”

            Iskra laughed. “Yeah, well, I don’t think they realized how bad it was going to be. And it was pretty good in science, actually.”

            As he got out of the chair to let Ral take his place, Jace looked down at his nails. Avacyn had done a very nice job. Nine of his fingers were a dark azure with a light silver sheen over which was laid, in curling solid silver, the abstract, almost arcane-looking symbols he had chosen. The thumb on his right hand was a simple black, and Avacyn had stamped a little heart on it in white. It looked nice.

            Glancing over to where Ral was sliding into the chair, Jace felt an unexpected warmth blossom in his chest. He hadn’t made this many new friends in a long time, and guiltily, he thought that it was—it was nice to be pushed out of his comfort zone like this. _But I’m not going to forget you_ , he thought, running his index finger over the smooth black paint on his thumb. _I promise._


	6. Psychic Overload

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Villainess attacks again.

            _The new sensors hit like a freight train, so much information burning through every neuron, every extra synapse and axon conscripted to handle the overload. Jace shakes his head like a dog, and Kallist’s laughter is vibrating through him._

_“Bit much for you?”_

_“I wish they’d let us have some practice,” Jace winces._

_“End of the world, man, how much time do you think we have?”_

_But it’s not safe. This is something Jace has never been able to get Kallist to understand—it’s not_ good _to be running on empty like this, always only half a step ahead of the kaiju. He hasn’t tested the Drift hardware in months, and every modification he’s made is one more that’s on his list to test, but the list just keeps growing longer._

_The new scientist—Zarek—handed them a list of questions to answer after today’s session, and Jace knows that if he gets to it at all, he’ll be alone, because there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to corral Kallist into helping out._

_“Damn straight. I’m either sleeping for twelve hours or I’m getting myself a girl.”_

_“That’s straight all right,” Jace sighs, and he feels Kallist’s grin somewhere to his right. Yes, Jace could try to find a girl himself, or he could try to find a boy, instead, but it’s so much effort for so little return._

_“Have fun with your questionnaire,” Kallist tells him, and Jace sighs again and rolls his eyes, and tries to cope with the flood of information._

_“Are you shunting_ extra _to me?” he demands indignantly._

_“You’re handling it better,” Kallist whines, and Jace winces and opens his mind and shunts the physical control of Paragon back in Kallist’s direction. The Jaeger rocks from side to side and then steadies. Time to save the world again._

            Jace blinked his eyes open to find that he was in Kallist’s bed again, and he got up a little guiltily. And yet, he’d been dreaming primarily from his own point of view, which meant that surely the hangover was beginning to fade. He just didn’t want it to. Which, of course, was just one more thing for him to feel guilty about.

            _Kallist_ , he thought bleakly. _Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone._

A soft sigh of a blurred, regretful thought, not even fully formed, _…sorry…_

            In the middle of splashing some water on his face, he heard the blaring of the alarms. Damn. He’d been hoping to put in some time with Ral in the lab. Damn the kaiju, couldn’t he ever find some time to do science? But he should go up to LOCCENT. With a sigh, Jace grabbed a somewhat formal-looking sweater and headed out into the corridor, where he almost immediately ran into Ral going in the same direction.

            The other man raised a hand in rapid greeting. “Science time is upstairs today,” he said, with something of the same impatience Jace felt, and—surprisingly—Jace felt a grin spreading over his face.

            “Why can’t they just let us do our research?” he asked, and something in him actually loosened at the touch of irreverence.

            “The real problem here is how inconveniently _timed_ this is,” Ral sighed. “I really wanted to get another look at the sensors before they dragged Paragon out into field conditions.”

            “The readouts that you did get—from us—they _are_ within the bounds of your models, right?”

            “Barely,” Ral frowned. “And your readouts are always, well, they’re _unbalanced_. Have you noticed?”

            Jace nodded. “Yeah. Kallist and I split the load—differently.” That was item number three on his list of things he wanted to investigate, although perhaps now that Kallist—perhaps now it was less urgent. “Most people do a pretty simple half-and-half kind of thing,” he continued, with a frown. “But Kallist was better at physical stuff, and I was better at the nonphysical side of things, so I ended up processing a lot of the sensor input while he kept us going.”

            “I didn’t even know that was a possibility,” Ral said slowly. “I really need to get you to give me a better lesson on Drift stuff.”

            “If I understood it better myself,” Jace sighed, “I’d be happy to. Most of my experience these days is all at an intuitive level. I need to do some better tests, but for that, I really need a partner.” He felt his eyes sliding awkwardly towards Ral as he said that. They got on well; they worked together excellently. There still weren’t a lot of studies that had a good, solid idea of what made two people Drift compatible, but Jace thought there was—a good chance. But Ral had said before he was uncomfortable with the idea of someone else in his head, so there wasn’t much point in wondering anyway.

            They walked in silence the rest of the way to LOCCENT, where Iskra met them and handed both of them a cup of coffee. There was a silent crease in her forehead, and Jace realized that this was the first time Avacyn was going out in Paragon for a real emergency.

            “What do we know?” he asked Baan, who was already crouched over a computer and typing quickly.

            “It’s Villainess again,” Baan said steadily. “The Marshal’s ordered Paragon, Assassin, and Masterpiece to go after her, and Vital Force is activated to patrol the Dome.”

            Villainess again. Jace shuddered, feeling a sudden foreboding chill frisson down his spine. “Did you tell them to be careful?” he asked. “She’s fast, very fast.”

            Dovin nodded. “Yes, Jace,” he said, in a tone of voice which sounded just a shade away from patronizing, but Jace wasn’t sure how much he was just reading in something that wasn’t there. Frowning, he headed for the side of LOCCENT, unsure whether he could be of help or not. Ral joined him, also frowning.

            “Fast and clever,” he added, apparently having overheard the brief conversation. “Last time Paragon tangled with her, she hit the communications array dead on.”

            “Yes. Thank you. I remember,” Jace snapped.

            “Just thinking out loud,” Ral returned, rather more mildly than Jace would have expected from him. They sank into silence and mutually sipped on their coffee. Ral must have taken his medication this morning, Jace thought, or there was no way he would be coherent without a cup of coffee.

            “ _Paragon initialized_ ,” Avacyn’s voice said excitedly over the coms.

            “Good. Move out,” Marshal Tirel said. “Masterpiece, Assassin, I want you to circle around and cover Villainess’s possible escape routes. Paragon, do you have her on your sensors?”

            “ _Not yet.”_ Sorin this time. “ _We haven’t initiated the specialized sensors yet._ ”

            “ _We caught a glimpse_ ,” said Kaya of Ghost Assassin. “ _We believe she’s holding at the edge of sensor range._ ”

            “All right, Paragon, initialize your sensors.”

            “ _Copy that. Initializing specialized sensors._ ”

            Jace felt himself moving slightly closer to Ral. Too early. Too damn early. But as long as everything went all right—

            “ _Sensors initialized. We’ve got her on our sights._ ”

            “Engage when ready.”

            “ _Copy_.”

            Letting out a nervous breath, Jace glanced to the side. Ral’s hand was tight around his coffee cup, but he showed no other signs of tension. “ _Paragon closing. She’s fast, we’re taking evasive maneuvers._ _Assassin, she’s moving your way, be on alert._ ”

            There was a pause. Jace tasted bitterness and looked down to see that he had his thumbnail in his mouth and was worrying at it. He spat flakes of nail polish into the palm of his hand disgustedly.

            “ _She’s—flickering_?” Avacyn’s voice again. “ _Dad, I think I’m losing—_ ” Radio silence, sudden and chilling. Jace had finished his coffee at some point, and now he crumpled the empty cup in his hand. Two seconds passed, then three.

            “Paragon,” Tirel said. “I need a report.”

            The response was a crackle of static and a sudden high-pitched squeal, which could have been metal-on-metal or could have emerged from a human throat. “What’s going on over there?” Tirel snapped. “Markov, I need a report, _now_.”

            This time, after another few agonizing seconds, the elder Markov’s voice came back tinny and edged with a hint of terror. “ _I don’t know, dammit! The Drift is destabilizing! Avacyn isn’t responding_!”

            “ _Neural handshake at seventy-five percent_ ,” Paragon informed them helpfully, and Jace bit his lip so hard he tasted coppery blood. “ _Sensor overload_ ,” Paragon continued. Over the coms, Markov screamed his daughter’s name.

            “Marshal, Paragon’s readouts are going haywire,” Dovin said steadily. “I don’t understand any of this.”

            “The sensors are my area,” Ral said. “Let me take a look.” He leaned over Baan’s back, one finger tracing across the screen. He swore, and Jace leaned forward as well, trying to make sense of the readouts that he was still unused to seeing from outside of a Jaeger. “This looks normal,” Ral said with a frown. “If anything, more balanced than the readings from Jace and Kallist.” Beside him, Iskra was clutching at a paper coffee cup, mindlessly shredding it with her fingers.

            _More balanced_. “Oh, god,” Jace said helplessly, feeling a sudden sick nausea washing over him. He looked around desperately for a spare computer, found one, and threw himself in front of it, entering his username before he’d even landed in the chair properly. A few seats over, Ral was muttering obscenities under his breath.

            In a moment or two, Jace had his and Kallist’s readouts pulled up, and he was staring at the spatial decomposition of the neural load.

_ >color by input?y/n> _

_y_ , Jace typed, and the colors rearranged on the screen. Sick with terror, Jace stared at the bright blue that represented the new sensor inputs—nearly all of which were localized in Jace’s own head.

            “Get me the sensor readouts!” he shouted over to Ral.

            “Yeah, I got you!” A moment later, Jace was staring at the current readouts. His stomach turned over, his hands shaking.

            “Disconnect them!” he shouted. “Disconnect them _now_!”

            He shoved himself out of the chair and raced toward the Marshal. Misjudging the distance of the row of desks, he slammed his hip into one at full speed. “Are you all right?” someone said, but Jace ignored them, ignoring the white-hot pain that speared through the top of his hip. “Marshal,” he gasped. “Please. You have to abort.”

            It was Baan who responded, frowning. “The drift is destabilizing, but they’re in hostile waters, engaging—”

            “Do you think I don’t know that?” Jace demanded. “But you’re risking total burnout!”

            “Ghost Assassin, what’s your position?” Tirel snapped, waving a hand at both of them. Jace went silent, biting at the insides of his lips.

            Karlov responded, in as calm a tone of voice as if this were all part of a drill. “Fifty meters and closing. We have Paragon and the kaiju in our sights.”

            “All right. Paragon, you need to disengage neural handshake.”

            Sorin’s voice came back breathlessly, “Copy—Marshal—but if we disconnect, the kaiju will—”

            “Disengage, Paragon. Assassin is closing, and Masterpiece is en route.”

            “Yes, m—” A sudden crunching, screaming noise came from the other end. “Avacyn—Avacyn, _no_!”

            Static. “Paragon, report,” Tirel said tersely. “ _Paragon_.”

            Jace drove his nails into the palm of his hand hard enough to feel the three sharp pricks of pain spiking upward through his wrist. Another few paralyzing moments of radio silence, and then a soft, low sobbing that made his stomach lurch and drop into his boots.

            “Daddy?” Avacyn’s voice, rough and hoarse and terrified. “Dad—Daddy— _please wake up_.”


	7. Shared Trauma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which both Jace and Avacyn attempt to handle their grief, and do so very poorly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings for past child abuse, current alcohol abuse, suicidal thoughts, self-loathing, and a sort-of-but-not-exactly-quite suicide attempt.

            _“Nivea?” Jace croaks as the paper-mache worm rises from the trapdoor in front of him. And that’s it; he stands frozen as the narrator speaks the last few lines of The Imaginary Emperor, and then he shuts his eyes, lets his muscles relax as the curtain falls. Lets the mindset of Ixidor fall away and the exhaustion of Jace Beleren wash over him. It’s the last performance, and Kallist promised he’d be in the audience, so Jace hopes he was good enough. Maybe he should be more interested in the fact that Garruk said he’d come, but, if Jace is honest with himself, he’s pretty sure the romance is fizzling out of that relationship._

_As the curtain rises again and the cast begins to assemble for the curtain call, Jace wonders miserably what he did wrong this time. He should be happy at the screaming, applauding crowd, but all he can seem to find inside is the sense of loss that’s been growing all evening. Ixidor’s loss, not his, Jace tells himself, but it doesn’t feel like that._

_It’s no surprise when Kallist is waiting for him and Garruk isn’t. Jace sets aside his feelings of hurt, readies himself to get a “it’s not you, it’s me” speech in the near future, and plasters a smile on his face. It helps that he really is glad to see his cousin._

_“Hey you, fantastic job!” Kallist claps him on the shoulder, and Jace smiles at him. “Maybe not so great getting Avacyn’s father killed, but you can’t win ’em all, can you?”_

_Jace stares, takes a half-step backwards. “What?” he says stupidly. Paragon’s interior lights blink warningly, flickering from calm blue to alarm-inducing red._

_“Sure, if you’d just checked the sensor readouts properly the way you were always saying you were going to, you’d have found the problem before anything bad happened, but I’m sure you were just busy thinking about how much you wanted to replace me with Zarek, weren’t you?”_

_“I—” says Jace hoarsely. “No. Replace you? Kallist—”_

_“It’s cool. Although maybe you should stop telling yourself you’re hanging onto me when you’re really just trying to shove me out the door as quickly as possible.”_

_Sand shifts beneath Jace’s feet, a low rumbling building around him. “I’m not,” he pleads. “Kallist, I could never replace you. You’re—you’re my brother.”_

_When the worm bursts from the sand beneath, Jace is half expecting it, but he’s still knocked on his ass. He still screams, even though if he deserves anything, it’s this. In the crimson light of the moon rising above him, Avacyn’s, Sorin’s, Kallist’s features stand out clearly on the tops of the hissing worms._

_“Going to run?” Kallist asks at his shoulder, sounding amused._

_Jace shakes his head, goes to his knees in the sand. “Just—make it fast?” he says softly. Avacyn strikes first—_

Curling his knees into his chest against the pain, Jace panted, clawing his way out of the nightmare. He was on the floor between his bed and Kallist’s; he’d probably thrashed his way out of whichever of the beds he’d fallen asleep in, not that he had any memory of falling asleep. The last thing he remembered was taking another swig from the bottle of whiskey that was now standing, almost half-empty, on the bedside table. That—had probably not been a great idea, Jace thought miserably. His head was pounding horribly.

            Staggering to his feet, he headed for the bathroom, where he considered leaning over the sink, and then turned the shower on instead. Stripping off his shirt and pants, he got in under the frigid water, opening his mouth and drinking some of it. The chill cut through the remaining haze of sleep and alcohol, although all that really did was make his head hurt more. Jace sat down in the bottom of the tub and wished he had a pumice stone or even a rough sponge. He drew his nails down the insides of both wrists, staring dully at the way the flesh reddened and swelled in their wake.

            _I killed Sorin_ , he thought.

            Assassin had managed to run off Villainess, although Kaya and Teysa couldn’t catch her; Masterpiece had collected Paragon. There was no external damage this time; there had been an internal explosion. Avacyn couldn’t tell them exactly what had happened; she’d been crouched beside the body of her father, still crying and begging him to wake up even when the rescue team had opened Paragon back at the Dome. It looked as if one of the internal panels had ignited. “He pushed me out of the way,” Avacyn said several times, so that answered another question.

            God, why hadn’t he just stayed a little later at the lab and _checked_ the Drift setup? Of course it had been modified for him and Kallist; Jace had tinkered with it god knew how many times over the past few years. And he’d known that he and Kallist ran the load in a totally unconventional manner; he hadn’t studied in-depth, maybe, but he’d known enough to know that. Jace shoved his fist into his mouth and shut his eyes as hot tears trickled down his face, cooling quickly under the chilly spray of the shower.

            _You’re so fucking useless_ , he berated himself. That was two Drift teams in a row he’d ruined. He should have been able to save Kallist. He should have been able to do _something_. He should have worked harder. He should have trained harder. Anything, not to lose Kallist. _Tezzeret was right about you_ , whispered another soft voice in the back of his head, and Jace flinched and wrapped his arms around himself.

            He stayed in the shower until his fingers were blue, and he was shivering. When he finally got out, he was so cold that his toes and fingers were tingling; he wrapped himself in a towel and then dug through his bottom drawer until he found Kallist’s old sweat-stained exercise shirt. Jace pressed his face into it, breathing in the scent, wondering how long it would be before this faded as well. No matter how hard he tried, his best friend was slipping away from him by inches.

            It was impossible to tell what time it was from his crouched position on the floor. From here, he couldn’t see the clock by the bed, and their tiny quarters didn’t get any natural illumination. On the other hand, Jace thought miserably, he didn’t foresee himself getting any more sleep tonight, so he might as well get dressed and get ready for the day. There would be more questions about the Drift, about Paragon, about what to do, and he was so tired that he still had no idea. Maybe if he got some coffee, he’d be able to figure out what to do. If it was late enough, he could find Ral, get him up, they could go for coffee together…

            A sharp pain in his throat brought him away from what almost sounded like a fantasy at this point. He was going to be leaving soon, anyway. They couldn’t keep him at the Dome any longer, not given how much of a liability he was. Might as well skip the coffee and save himself a little pain later on. Groaning, he put his head in his hands. _Stop being an idiot_ , someone told him. _I’m not,_ he thought back at them, but he forced himself to stand up. Folding it carefully, he pressed Kallist’s shirt back into the dresser, hoping it would hold onto his scent a little bit longer. Then he dug out jeans and a t-shirt of his own, grabbed his discarded boxers from the floor, and yanked on his clothes, before collapsing back onto his bed, eying the discarded bottle of whiskey somewhat wistfully. He really shouldn’t, but—

            Someone knocked on the door. Startled, Jace whipped round, nearly knocking the bottle on the floor. “Um, coming!” he shouted. “I’ll just be a minute.”

~

            Over the past few weeks, Ral and Jace had started getting coffee together in the mornings. It hadn’t exactly been a stated appointment of any sort, but when coffee time rolled around without Jace, Ral debated briefly, then poured some of the absolutely disgusting but at least free of charge instant coffee into a thermos and went to find him.

            When he wasn’t anywhere around the laboratory, Ral sighed and went to look up the directory to find Jace’s quarters. It might be a little intrusive, he supposed, but for some reason he just wanted to make sure he knew where Jace was. Yesterday had been a mess, and Jace’s face floated for an instant before Ral’s eyes—white and hollow and drawn. Ral shook his head. This was stupid. Jace had probably overslept.

            He knocked irritably at Jace’s door; when there was no answer, he opened it and stuck his head in. “Jace?”

            No answer. Ral switched on the light and looked around. Jace’s quarters were large for one person, but they were covered in odds and ends. Either Jace or Kallist must have had a real taste for picking up cheap knick-knacks, because there was literally a wall full of snowglobes. Not only that, but rocks covered the top of the bookshelf—Ral paused for an instant, staring at the welter of different crystalline structures.

            Neither bed was made, but the one on the left had obviously been slept in recently, while the one on the right was piled with clothes, as if Jace had been trying to sort through Kallist’s effects and hadn’t managed to get very far. Ral frowned, moving toward Jace’s bed. Halfway there, he tripped over a half-full bottle of whiskey on the floor, and his frown deepened. Okay, that was legitimately concerning. Time to get Dr. Tandris.

~

            _“I want to go home.”_

_“Yeah, well, this was your idea.”_

_“It was not!” Jace kicks fiercely at a stone in the yard. “They would have sent us anyway.”_

_“If you’d listened to me, if we’d just hidden—”_

_“Then we would have put Mom and Dad through a lot of unnecessary stress.” But the words taste sour in Jace’s mouth. Maybe Kallist’s idea would have worked. And then Kallist wouldn’t have those dark striped bruises across his back. “You didn’t have to step in for me,” Jace says fiercely._

_“Bullshit.” Kallist grabs his arm. “You’re my brother, and it wasn’t your fault that the stupid vase broke.”_

_“It was literally my fault. I knocked it over.”_

_“Because you were so afraid of what Tezzeret would say over a single B+ on a math test?”_

_“I just have to be better,” Jace whispers. “I just have to be better, and when the evacuation’s over, we can go home.” Home. The smell of Dad’s sugar cookies and the sound of Mom’s dumb 80s music. If his grades slip too much, will Mom worry? With her work, she’s already got so much on her plate. And what if there really is a kaiju attack? Jace swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I can do this,” he says. “I really am good at math, I just—I just need to work harder. Tezzeret is right that I’m smart. I just don’t work hard enough.”_

_Kallist shakes his head and mutters something. “Well, you can’t work harder if your back hurts,” he shrugs. “If Tezzeret doesn’t really care about my grades, and I don’t really care about the pain—”_

_“It won’t happen again,” Jace mutters wearily._

            Jace surfaced slowly from a dark haze. The inside of his mouth was dry and tasted foul, and piercing pain lanced through his head. He could feel the cradle of Paragon’s interlocks around him even now, as strongly as if he’d been strapped in and preparing to Drift. And then he cracked his eyes open and glimpsed familiar blue light.

            “Are you awake?” It took him a long minute to place the calm, monotonous voice, because Avacyn—should not sound like that.

            “What happened?” Jace groaned. All he could bring to mind of the previous night was a hazy image of Ral helping him in the lab as he numbly sorted through the readouts, trying to address the calibration issue that had had such tragic consequences. There was no memory of leaving, though, no memory of bed, no reason for him to be—

            He was in Paragon. Why was he in Paragon? Had there been an accident?

            “I want you to bring him back.” Avacyn’s voice was thicker now, still monotonous but choked, as if she were speaking around gravel lodged in her throat.

            “Bring—what? Avacyn, what’s going on?” White-hot pain pulsed like a nail through Jace’s temple.

            “My dad. I know you can do it. He’s still in the Drift, right? _You_ can get him out.”

            Jace was beginning to realize he was in trouble, as he squirmed against the restraints and found that he could barely move. “Avacyn,” he said steadily. “No. I can’t.”

            “I want you to bring him back!” There were tears running out of the corner of her eyes, but her mascara, some small part of Jace noted, wasn’t smudged: waterproof mascara was probably a good idea for a Jaeger pilot. Oh, god, he was punch drunk, wasn’t he? “You can do it,” Avacyn said, sniffing and wiping her eyes, once again speaking in that calm, controlled monotone. “I know you can. I know you still have Kallist in your head. You could probably pilot Paragon by yourself.”

            “No, I really couldn’t,” Jace said dizzily. “I have—I’ve had an unusually long drift hangover, that’s all.” It was morbidly amusing, he thought, that he’d been wanting to die for something like the past several weeks, and now that it was looking increasingly likely, he was suddenly very interested in surviving. At the very least, he wanted a chance to tell Ral—something. He wasn’t sure what.

            “I know you can,” Avacyn repeated. “Paragon, initiate neural drift.”

            If it was possible for Paragon’s rich baritone to sound nervous, it did. “Warning. Only one pilot connected. The risk of brain damage is high.”

            “Just do it!” Avacyn said, her voice skating into a higher register. “Jace, make him do it.” She pressed something cold and metal against his throat. “Make him do it.”

            Jace swallowed carefully, because that felt very much like a knife. “It’s not going to—ghk—” A sting of pain as the knife parted flesh; he felt warm blood begin to trickle down the side of his neck. Shutting his eyes, Jace breathed in and out. _I’m sorry, Ral_. “Paragon,” he said. “Initiate neural drift. Safety override, Rhoka J, password B E R R I M 8 1 5.”

            “Initiating neural drift,” Paragon said, slowly, so slowly, as if it were trying to hold back, and the cold knife shivered against Jace’s throat. “Neural handshake at ten percent.”

            He’d expected fire, burning at the base of his brain, but what he felt was more akin to an icy chill. His senses seemed to fade, slowly, as the connection to nothingness increased. A whisper to his left drew his attention, and he frowned, straining his ears.

            — _“Where’s Papa?”_

_“Your papa and I haven’t been agreeing very much lately, Ava.”_

_“But where is he?”_

_“You’ll still see him on the weekends.”_

_She doesn’t understand. Why did Papa leave? Why do people leave? She wants Papa to stay—_

—A fragment, an echo, Jace told himself. He was shivering, teeth clacking together as if he were very cold—

            “Neural handshake at twenty-seven percent.”

            — _Sorin’s husband is beautiful and so goddamn angry. Sorin pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “It’s not forever. I know it’s a surprise, but don’t you want this child?”_

_“I want_ a _child, but I don’t want it out of my own—this isn’t_ me _.” Voice hissing with an old, angry pain. “I don’t want to_ bear _a child, you asshole!” Fists against his chest; he holds them back easily, and sharp words hover to his tongue. For a moment, he considers holding them back, but they spill over as they always do. “If you’d been responsible for once in your life—”_

_“You could’ve used a condom, jackass!”_

_“I didn’t know you wanted me to!”_

_“You could have fucking asked!”—_

—That had to be Sorin. Jace’s shivering was abating, though his head still felt painful, overfull. But he could follow that echo, couldn’t he? There was some reason he was supposed to follow. Yes, he was supposed to follow. But where was Kallist?

            — _Bright red alarm lights flashing. Avacyn is screaming and convulsing beneath the helmet. He’s never seen anything like this before. This wasn’t supposed to be the danger; they’re Drift-compatible, dammit!—_

_—she’s sobbing in a corner because Papa didn’t come this week and now Daddy is yelling—_

_—“You forgot? How could you forget? She’s your daughter!”—_

_—They step together, in perfect harmony, Kallist and Jace, the two brothers-who-aren’t-brothers (not kissing cousins either, shut up, Kallist), but ahead of them, instead of the ocean, there is only a vast grey mist—_

It wasn’t cold anymore; it wasn’t _sensation_ anymore. There was nothing but numbness spreading through his limbs. There had been a pain in his head, but that was gone now, and the whispers were rising, louder and louder, in his ears. The whispers were rising, and he was drowning in them.

            — _Swelling waves—jittering oscillations—“can’t turn it off”—bright flames, stickiness in his mouth—a low voice murmuring “to be or not to be that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind”—low stage lights and Jace’s face, pale but determined—“can’t override”—the waves swelling higher and higher as he slowly suffocates—_

A hand grasped his suddenly, reassuringly real and full, and Jace was suddenly aware of how oddly empty he had felt. The hand was warm, and it touched and warmed his own hand—which was icy. A bone-deep ache speared up his wrist as the warmth fought against the cold that was so cold that he couldn’t even feel it. There was someone _there_ ; it wasn’t just the faint whispers of the dead bouncing around in his skull. He couldn’t tell who it was, but as the painful warmth traveled up his arm and into his spine, he heard a muffled voice, _Tell Paragon to shut down_.

            What did that mean? Jace couldn’t figure it out. There was just the cold and the loneliness that he’d been feeling now for weeks since Kallist died, fighting with the warmth and the heat. It was like coming in from a snowstorm and stepping right into the shower—every inch of his skin was _burning_.

            _Tell Paragon to shut down NOW, asshole!_

            He should probably do what the voice was saying, even if he wasn’t sure why. Whoever it was sounded irritated, and as his mind unfroze, Jace could feel someone’s fear leaking into it. He concentrated, trying to find his lips, which turned out to be somewhere he hadn’t expected, for some reason. Frowning, he forced them to form words, and then, belated, remembered that he had to vibrate his vocal cords as well. “Paragon,” he heard someone saying very far away. “Disengage neural handshake.”

            And another voice, vibrating through him and booming like thunder, _Disengaging neural bridge. Neural handshake at thirty percent._

The heat and cold began to fade as the thunderous voice narrated the countdown, and then Jace was stumbling forward, out of Paragon’s restraints and into Emmara’s arms. Avacyn was slumped sideways against some of the controls, her eyes staring emptily at the floor; Nissa and Chandra stood beside her, a hand on each of her shoulders. The knife she had used on Jace lay on the floor at her feet.

            Across the room, in the other cradle—in Kallist’s cradle—Ral Zarek was swearing and stripping the helmet off his head. Jace let Emmara prop him up and stared mutely.

            “Are you all right, Jace?” she asked quietly.

            “Well, I have a ringing headache, and pins and needles in all my extremities, but—yeah, I think—I think I’m okay.” He tried not to think about how _close_ he had felt to Kallist, because Kallist was dead. He attempted a crooked smile. “Lonely, I suppose.”

            Emmara’s face went suddenly blank. “We’d better report to the Marshal,” she said, quietly. “We’ll need to—”

            “It was my idea,” Jace said.

            “ _What_?” Ral said from behind him. “There is a _bloody knife_ on the floor—”

            Jace turned, exhausted, head still ringing, but suddenly oddly calm. “It was my fault,” he said, softly. “I should have checked the calibrations. I’d been promising myself I’d look into the vagaries of our Drift for _months_. And I didn’t.”

            Emmara’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “You would have _died_ , Jace, if Ral hadn’t realized you were missing, you’d have burned out your brain and _died_ —”

            “It was a stupid idea,” Jace said mildly. “But like I said. Lonely.”

            “Do you seriously think the Marshal will believe that you would be stupid enough to do something like _that_?” Emmara demanded, then sighed. “Jace, you can’t do this. Your career—”

            “Look at her.” Avacyn was still staring vacantly at the ground. “That is _my fault_. I’m not having her locked away because she had a—a minor mental aberration.”

            “Yeah, real minor,” Ral muttered. “She tried to fucking kill you.”

            “She just got there first.” Jace stared down at his hands. “I—I’m not—”

            “All right,” Emmara said. “Here is my offer. We tell Marshal Tirel that both of you were involved in the idea, and, in return, both of you agree to stay under observation in sickbay for at least a week.”

            Nodding jerkily, Jace leaned into her arms. “Yeah. I don’t—I don’t actually want to—I just. I just miss him.”

            “I know.” Emmara held him and stroked the hair back from his forehead. “You’re not the only one, Jace.”

            Guilt stabbed into his chest again. “Of course—I don’t mean to—”

            “She’s trying to be empathetic, Jace, even I can tell that. Shut up. You need some sleep.” Ral. And when had Ral’s presence at his back become so oddly comforting? Jace wasn’t sure.

           


	8. Mind Ravel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace has nightmares, and Ral and Jace do some work together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for explicit descriptions of physical and emotional child abuse (if you want to skip them, skip the italicized bit at the beginning); there are allusions to the events later but nothing as direct.

_“God, you’re so fucking impossible! You never listen to anything anyone says! I am fucking done, Tezzeret, I’m not going to fucking deal with this anymore.” The door slams behind Baltrice, and Jace flinches at the sound. He’s trembling, he notices; Kallist can’t save him this time._

_When Tezzeret turns towards him, his voice is cold and calm, but his eyes are burning. “Take off your shirt,” he says to Jace._

_“I’m sorry,” Jace forces out between trembling teeth. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry, it won’t happen again, I promise—” Why can’t he be better?_

_“Take. Off. Your. Shirt.”_

_“Please—” He’s a coward, because he can’t even face up to his own mistakes, and every muscle is trembling. He’s let Kallist take this for him so many times, and, okay, maybe Tezzeret wasn’t as angry those times, but he still deserves this. He’s heard Tezzeret say it so many times now. Sometimes it feels like everything up until the evacuation was just one long dream, and now he’s awake, and it’s awful._

_Tezzeret grabs his arm and yanks him forward. Jace wants to yank his arm away, wants to run, but that’s just because he’s a coward, and besides, that will just make Tezzeret angrier. He reaches for the hem of his shirt. “Good,” Tezzeret says, voice chilly and far away._

_Yanking his shirt off, Jace accidentally drops it when his shaking fingers open._

_“Sloppy,” Tezzeret comments, and Jace almost throws up as he reaches for the cane leaning against the wall. And then Tezzeret’s hand is on the back of his head, and he’s being forced down over the table. The first blow skitters awkwardly across his back, and Jace doesn’t mean to struggle, but he can’t stop himself from crying out at the pain and trying to tug away. “Please don’t,” he begs, hating himself the whole time._

_“Quiet,” Tezzeret snarls, and for the first time Jace hears an emotion in his voice. He grits his teeth and shuts his eyes, jerking as the next blow falls. It’s usually only a few hits, he knows, maybe six or seven, and he tries to count because surely he can hold on through that. Except Tezzeret doesn’t stop at seven, and by ‘ten’ Jace is crying and begging again. Eleven lands right on one of the previous locations, and Jace screams, and now he’s fighting to get away, he can’t help it, but Tezzeret is stronger than he is, and Tezzeret’s full weight is pinning him place._

_“Stop!” Jace screams, and he hates himself, and his face is covered with tears and snot, and Tezzeret doesn’t stop and doesn’t stop. He’s going to die; his back is on fire; he’s going to die. He can’t breathe against the pain, and his lungs are burning. He’s not begging anymore, he’s just making noise instead._

_As suddenly as the blows started, they stop. Tezzeret makes a disgusted noise and lets him go, and Jace, suddenly without support, goes down onto his knees in front of the table. The pain flares again and then slowly changes, pulsing in aching waves along his back with his heartbeat. Someone is sobbing close to his ear._

_“Go clean yourself up,” Tezzeret says in that same cool voice, and Jace manages to scramble to his feet. “Get your shirt.”_

_Right. Bending over disturbs the tentative balance of his back, and he sobs again, waiting for the pain to subside before he scoops up his shirt and starts forcing himself towards the bathroom. There’s no lock on the door, but shutting it behind him makes him feel a little safer. ‘See?’ he thinks to himself. ‘You survived, you’re fine.’_

_He doesn’t feel fine. He stares at his back in the mirror; in places it’s already turning purple with bruising, and there are three bright bleeding red lines where the skin has been broken. Tezzeret told him to clean up, and he knows he meant for Jace to put some antiseptic on the injuries, maybe bind them up somehow, but he can’t stand to touch them. Instead, trembling, he pulls his shirt back on, and then he goes over to the closed bathroom door and sits against it. There’s another burst of pain, and he whimpers, and then it’s gone; he lets his head droop forward onto his knees._

_~_

_When Kallist gets back, all the lights are on, which is not a good sign in the middle of the day. Looks like he picked a shitty day to run off and have a smoke by himself, but he just figured he deserved a little time on his own. Ugh. What, did Baltrice throw another shit fit? Jace always needs comforting after Tezzeret’s yelled at him, which is frustrating. Well, it’s just Jace, Kallist supposes, but he wishes he could give a little of his own lack-of-giving-a-shit to his cousin, because Jace could really use it._

_Only when Kallist steps inside the house, he sees that the cane’s been moved and replaced, and the chairs around the table have been shoved to the side. Oh, no. Tezzeret wouldn’t—would he? “Fuck,” Kallist mutters. Where’s Jace? He has to find Jace._

_“Jace?” he calls, and then Tezzeret comes out of the other room and gives him his best patented Tezz-glare._

_“Don’t yell,” he says, patient and cold._

_“Sorry,” Kallist says. “Where’s Jace?”_

_“I don’t know,” Tezzeret responds. “I told him to go clean up and he hasn’t come back yet. I thought he might need some time to himself.”_

_Kallist doesn’t ask what happened. He doesn’t need to. All he does is bolt blankly for the bathroom and rap on it. “Jace?” he calls softly. “Are you in there?”_

_There’s a stir of movement in the bathroom, and then Jace pulls the door open. His eyes are bloodshot, and his face is bone-white._

_“Jesus, Jace,” Kallist says. “Are you all right?”_

_“I’m fine,” Jace whispers, and that’s when Kallist feels his stomach twist up inside himself, because there’s a dotted brown-red stain seeping through the upper corner of Jace’s shirt, where it’s basically plastered to Jace’s back._

_“Fuck this,” Kallist says. “Come with me.”_

_Jace flinches. “What?” he asks._

_“We’re going to the police station,” Kallist says, quiet but fierce. “This isn’t okay anymore, we’re calling Mom and Dad and we’re going home.”_

_“But we can’t—”_

_“Shut up, Jace. We can’t stay here anymore. I’d rather get eaten by a kaiju than let Tezzeret ever touch you again. Got it? So shut up.”_

_And he should have done this a year ago, because the guilty relief that floods Jace’s face is almost too much. In that instant, Kallist makes himself a promise. He’s going to protect Jace. He’s never going to let him be hurt ever again._

            Slowly, Jace opened his eyes. His head was hurting, and for an instant, a phantom pain chased through the old scars in his back before fading. How much of the second part of that dream was real, he wondered. _You asshole_ , he said tiredly to the empty, fading, fraying part of his mind where the echoes of the Drift hangover still lingered. _I didn’t want you to protect me, I just—I just wanted you to be okay_.

            Stupid Kallist. But they’d both been so fucked up by the three years they’d spent in evacuation with Tezzeret and Baltrice. Jace rested his head in his hands. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had therapy; it wasn’t as if it hadn’t helped. At least now he knew that the voice that whispered in the back of his head, constantly telling him everything was his own fault, wasn’t _right_. He just couldn’t always ignore it, and sometimes it could be very hard to tell whether it was that voice or whether the reality was that something was just his fault.

            He looked down at his thumb. The nail polish at the top had flaked off, and there was a semicircular divot missing on the left side, but the white-on-black design was still mostly visible. They’d need to get Avacyn a therapist. Jace wasn’t sure what the Marshal was likely to order about the young woman’s continued presence in the Shatterdome, but where else was she going to go? Whatever program she’d come from, she couldn’t go back there now. Did she have any other relatives? One of the fragments from the disastrous single-person Drift he’d performed the day before floated to the top of his head. Avacyn did have another father, somewhere. Jace thought it was pretty likely that he loved her, even if he and Sorin had had issues, but judging from one tiny memory wasn’t the greatest idea. Still, it was a possible line of investigation, if nothing else.

            “Good morning, sleepyhead.” Emmara slipped into the room. “How are you feeling?”

            “Wrung out,” Jace sighed. “My head hurts. Oh, and I’m really frustrated, because I spent a lot of energy _not_ trying to kill myself and now it feels like all that was wasted.” _Also I’m back to PTSD nightmares_. But he didn’t really want to share that with Emmara. Maybe when he got himself another therapist, which, come to think of it, he definitely needed now. Grief counseling, maybe.

            “I think all your friends appreciate it,” Emmara said, bending over him. “Seriously, Jace, you’re mostly here because I need to make sure you don’t have any lasting effects from three minutes of solo Drifting. You’re not on suicide watch.”

            “Everyone thinks I am,” Jace sighed.

            “Well, and whose fault is that?”

            He flinched a little at that, but managed a shrug and a smile. “I just—I want to make sure she gets _help_.” He blew out his breath. “I know what it’s like to be a fucked-up teenager.”

            “I personally guarantee you that we will take care of Avacyn, Jace.” Emmara frowned, and he suddenly saw the core of steel inside her that she rarely showed to anyone else. “Iskra has been begging me to spend some time with her, and I’m going to let her visit later today. I think that should help a little, at least. And now, presumably, the Marshal will _finally_ okay my request for a permanent, on-call psychologist.” She shook her head. “ _She_ needs a therapist, too.”

            And that set Jace back a little, the thought of Marshal Tirel—their rock—needing therapy. But she’d lost her own copilot, hadn’t she? He hadn’t really ever thought about that. Oddly, the thought made Jace feel a little more cheerful. He wasn’t as alone as he’d been grappling with, was he?

            “Sorry if I’ve been an idiot lately,” he said awkwardly to Emmara, and she took his hand and squeezed it.

            “You’re always an idiot, Jace,” she said, but she said it fondly. “This isn’t as bad as when it took you five minutes to realize why Kallist was trying to get you to leave your quarters.”

            He went slightly pink. “I had _no_ reason to assume you were in the bed! If you’d said something—”

            “Well, I did, after it became clear you weren’t going to take any hints.”

            “They were very subtle hints, and I was tired!”

            Emmara rolled her eyes at him. “All right, I can see you’re definitely feeling better. Why don’t you read or do something relaxing, and I’ll come back and check on you in a few hours?”

            “Sounds good. If I’m going to have an enforced break, I suppose I might as well catch up on a little light reading.”

            It turned out Jace was more tired than he’d thought he was; he fell asleep an hour or two later, and woke up after another set of Highlights From the Tezzeret Years with a whimpering shout to find that he’d nearly hit Ral in the face. “Shit, sorry.”

            “Are all Jaeger pilots this violent, or am I just lucky?” Ral drawled, but he didn’t look particularly put-out.

            Jace scrubbed a hand over his face and realized that he wasn’t certain when he’d last shaved. Not a great look. And when had he started feeling self-conscious around _Ral_? “You’re just lucky, I guess. I’ve been having nightmares.”

            “Yeah—uh. Sorry about the whole Drifting with you without asking _thing_.” Ral shifted, and Jace thought he actually looked uncomfortable.

            “Do you always apologize for saving someone from serious brain damage?” Jace asked, and it was actually easy to smile.

            Ral glared for a moment, but then smiled back. “Only when I do it without their consent, obviously.” He sighed. “Yeah, dumb thing to apologize for, but I didn’t really know how else to segue into ‘you have some really fucked-up memories, sorry for intruding, but I didn’t have a lot of options.’”

            “Oh, shit. What did you see?” Of course Ral had seen some of his memories. It hadn’t been like a normal Drift, where he’d at least have come out of it having some idea of which parts of himself Ral had gotten up-close-and-personal with.

            Shuffling, Ral pulled a face. “Did it scar?” he asked. “On your back.” Then he looked away.

            Crap. That was probably why he was dreaming about it again, as well: not just stress and misery, but something stirred up by the unusual Drift. Well. Small price to pay for no death or serious brain damage. “Um, yeah,” Jace said, his own voice sounding far away to his ears. “It was a while before the doctor got to look at the injuries, and I’d gotten clothing fibers trapped in them. The scarring isn’t extensive, but it’s visible.” He cracked a half-smile. “I got some interesting questions from girlfriends and boyfriends in college.”

            “That sucks.” Ral scratched at the back of his head. “I’m going to take a flying guess and assume that Drifting is usually less chaotic than that?”

            “As long as no one chases the rabbit, yeah. But you’re also not supposed to be added to a Drift after the first person has, you know, gone in by themselves.”

            “You don’t say.” Ral raised an eyebrow at him. “Glad you’re all right, anyway.”

            Jace barked out a surprised laugh. “Thanks.”

            “D’you want me to get you anything? I can grab you one of the shitty laptops we have for the interns and you can probably SSH into the mainframe.”

            Chewing on his lip, Jace looked down at his book. Strictly speaking, he probably shouldn’t be doing work, but he couldn’t reasonably be expected to just sit around and read all day, could he? “Yeah, thanks,” he said, finally. Just having the laptop wasn’t a commitment of any kind. “And—can you make sure someone is resetting the Drift in Paragon?”

            “ ‘Someone’ will be me,” Ral said dryly. “I’m the one who set up the sensor interface in the first place, remember? Actually, if you’ve got the time, maybe I could sit down with you and make sure I know what I’m doing?”

            “It’s not as if I have anywhere pressing to be,” Jace returned wryly.

            “Great, I’ll run out and grab one of the laptops then.”

            It didn’t take long for Ral to return; he’d brought two laptops, “in case we both want to work or whatever.” And it was easy to fall into a rhythm with Ral again, easier than Jace had thought it would be. They went from Jace explaining the Drift modifications he’d made and how to revert them to designing a new interface with the sensors. They even managed to abstract some of the design so that it would be at least a little robust to changes in the Drift configuration.

            They’d been working for a few hours when Emmara came back in and sighed. “What are you two doing? Jace is supposed to be _resting_.”

            “I’m resting!” Jace protested. “This is restful!” He looked down at the bed. There were several different scraps of paper strewn across it where he and Ral had gone for a notepad and pen so that they could see their ideas all at once and easily, and he had knocked the book he’d been reading onto the ground at some point. “I—” he paused, breathed in, breathed out, checked the clock. “I—haven’t thought about Kallist in three hours.”

            Emmara’s face went momentarily blank and rearranged itself. “That’s good,” she said. “I’d like you to get a little extra sleep, though; you’re still recovering, and I don’t think you’d better tax yourself too much. Ral, you’re welcome to come back tomorrow.”

            “Um, okay.” Ral gathered up the papers and his laptop, then, after a moment, set the other laptop down carefully at the side of the bed. “Hey—Dr. Tandris?”

            “Yes?”

            “Drift hangover,” Ral said. “How long does that usually last?”

            “A day or two is the average,” she replied. “It can vary quite a bit, though. A brain scan can sometimes be predictive.”

            “How _does_ mine look?” Jace asked, and Emmara started guiltily. “What? Did you think I wouldn’t assume you’d done one while I was out? I signed the waiver when I got into the robot; we all did.”

            “I’d still prefer to have been able to ask for your consent.”

            “So, how does it look?” She glanced towards Ral. “Ral should probably know, since he’s now rubbed it all over his own brain.”

            “It’s not like blood contamination, Jace.”

            “See, this is why I need to actually go and do my damn PhD,” Jace said with a sigh. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more thought contagion involved in Drifting—and maybe even out of it—than most people really conceptualize of. Anyway. I don’t mind if you tell me while Ral’s here.”

            Emmara inclined her head in acquiescence. “You’re not showing as many symptoms as I expected, honestly,” she said. “Your brain scan was—unusual—to say the least. A wave decomposition suggests you’ve got at least four different patterns in there, maybe more. Kallist’s is the most obvious—yes, you’re still showing obvious Drift hangover there—but I’m not sure of the others. Two are very faint, and the other one isn’t on file, so that’s probably Ral.”

            “Ugh, I guess I should let you scan my head as well then.” Ral sighed. “Fine, cool, great, I’ll make an appointment or something. Jace, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “Um, sure, uh—Ral?”

            “Hm?” Ral turned, already halfway to the door.

            “Sorry if you’re having nightmares?”

            The scowl he got almost made him flinch before he realized that it wasn’t directed at him. “Not your fault,” Ral said, almost gently, and then he turned and headed for the door.


	9. Bump in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace visits Avacyn.

            _It’s raining so hard Ral can barely see, and the wheels of his bike keep sliding. He’s fallen twice already, and both times he’s had to stop and check that he hasn’t broken any of the equipment in his backpack, especially the glass plates. So far the Styrofoam packing Mom put around it is holding, but he really needs to make it to the science fair with all his things unbroken. And he’s late. Stupid storm._

_He pedals harder, mentally charting how long it’s going to take him to get from here to the school. Ahead, at the end of the block, the crosswalk light has just turned to WALK. It’s a short light, but if he really tries—_

_Leaning forward, crouching underneath the weight of his backpack, he focuses on that single bright light ahead through the driving rain, and he’s focusing so hard that he doesn’t realize that there’s something—off—about the air around him, until everything seems to jumble around him, as if the world has scrambled itself. The crosswalk light disappears in a flood of white, and the sound of rain is gone; instead there is just a hollow silence in his ears._

_The next thing he knows, he’s lying on the ground, tangled in his bike, and there’s a deep, strange pain running through his left leg. Swearing—all the words he’s definitely not supposed to say near Iskra—he shoves the bike off and pulls himself into a sitting position. He can move the leg, anyway, that’s good, but it’s stinging and aching as if it’s been burned. Wiping rain out of his eyes, Ral looks down to see that his jeans are smoking acridly, and that the left leg is shredded. Along the back of his calf twines a delicate, fern-like pattern marked in raised, red, inflamed flesh._

            “Pssssst.” The pain in Jace’s leg flared and flickered out with the end of the dream, and he was awake.

            Groaning, he pulled his face out of the pillow and blinked at the flashlight that was being shone into his face. Part of his brain was still trying to grapple with the fact that Ral had been struck by lightning on the way to a science fair as a child, but he managed to wrench himself back to the present and stare blearily at the clock by the bedside. “What time even _is_ it?”

            “Sorry.” The figure behind the flashlight moved slightly, and he recognized that little shuffle.

            “Iskra? What are you doing here?”

            “Um. So. I may have possibly been visiting Avacyn?”

            “In the middle of the _night_?”

            “No one was letting me into see her, and it took me a while to, uh, find a usable keycard.”

            Jace groaned. “You _didn’t_.”

            “I wanted to make sure she was all right! And, well, she asked if I could get you? She—she isn’t in a great place, but she didn’t want me to get Dr. Tandris, and I just—” She shrugged helplessly. “Please?”

            Yawning, he waved a hand in acquiescence. “All right, just give me a minute to wake up a little.”

            Really, Jace thought, as he sat on the bed with his head pillowed in his hands, _really_ , he should go to Emmara. But the thought of Avacyn by herself, locked in—even if it was mostly for her own safety—she’d only been at the Dome for a few weeks. She couldn’t know Emmara very well, and, while she didn’t necessarily know _Jace_ that well either, if she was specifically asking for him—Jace sighed, chewed on his lip, and then double-checked that he knew how to activate the emergency intercom so that if everything went to shit, he’d at least be able to summon Emmara.

            They stumbled through the ward, Jace clinging to Iskra’s shoulder. The little flashlight she held did not illuminate a large enough area to easily avoid a lot of feeling around and bumping into things. When Jace accidentally brushed an empty bed with his hip, a bright burst of pain reminded him that he’d bruised himself horribly in LOCCENT while trying to figure out what was going wrong with the Markovs’ Drift.

            They spent an agonizing few minutes outside of the room Avacyn was housed in, with Iskra repeatedly swiping the key-card and muttering obscenities as she kept getting a red light.

            “Are you putting it in the right way?” hissed Jace.

            “ _Yes_ , how dumb do you think I _am_?”

            “Let me try.”

            “I’ve _got_ it.” One more flash of red, and then a final swipe got it to go green. Feeling somewhat guilty, Jace followed Iskra into the room and let the door shut behind them.

            At least the light was on in here. Avacyn was sitting up in her little cot, with her knees drawn into her chest, shoulders shaking as she cried. Iskra crossed the room to her immediately, reaching out an awkward hand that stopped just short of touching her shoulder. “I, uh, I brought Jace?”

            Avacyn looked up, sniffed, and cried harder. “I’m s-s-s-sorry!” she wailed. “I’m so sorry—I just—I just needed to apologize, I—”

            Tears were welling up in Jace’s eyes as well as he sat himself down on the bottom edge of her bed. “Um,” he said awkwardly. “I’m—I’m sorry, too.”

            “I almost _killed_ you,” Avacyn wept, and Jace saw that she was dragging her nails up and down the inside of her wrist.

            “Hey—don’t—” He reached out automatically and caught at her hand. “You—um, you’ll ruin your nail polish.” A breathless, surprised giggle; Avacyn pressed at her eyes with the backs of her palms. “Look,” Jace continued. “I know what you were trying to do. If I could have done it, I would have. If—there were any way—” He shut his eyes. “I miss Kallist,” he said, finally. “All I have left are the memories and the—the bits and pieces. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how atypical our Drift was and how badly Paragon needed to be reset. I’m so sorry.”

            “But I’m supposed to be apologizing,” Avacyn whispered, and she reached out and caught his hand in hers.

            “Can’t we both be sorry?” Jace squeezed her hand tightly. “God, if I’d been able to bring him back, I would have, I swear to you.”

            She sniffed again, and the tears kept flowing. “I know. Are—are you, um, are you all right, though?”           

            Jace gave her a small smile. “What are a few more thought patterns in here? I’m doing fine, really.”

            Iskra leaned forward, putting gentle hands on Avacyn’s shoulders. “He and Ral were working on science crap all afternoon, he can’t be terribly badly hurt.”

            “I just—I should never have—I don’t know what I was _thinking_ —”

            “Shhh.” Jace and Iskra both leaned forward, and the next moment there was an awkward three-person hug happening, and Jace was reminded of the time that Vinny had broken her ankle and he and Iskra had come to pick her up at the hospital—no, wait, that wasn’t his memory. Damn.

            He didn’t want to say that it was going to be all right, because it wasn’t all right now, and losing Kallist didn’t feel as if it was ever going to be all right. So, instead, he just held Avacyn and stroked her back the way his mother used to when he woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about Tezzeret. “Shhh,” he said again, not really meaning anything by it, just making the noise because it was a quiet, calm sort of noise.

            Making a muffled sound, she pressed her wet face briefly against his shoulder and leaned back against Iskra, who swallowed awkwardly and then kissed her forehead. “You’re gonna be okay,” she said. “I, uh, that sounds dumb. But you have friends and a girlfriend and we care.”

            Avacyn blinked. “You—girlfriend?”

            “Oh, uh, um. If you want, I mean? I guess we hadn’t really, totally, like—we’d gone on a few dates but, um—”

            “No, I, yes, please?” She sniffled, curling into a smaller ball, and Jace had to chuckle at both of them. “I’m glad,” Avacyn continued, her voice faint but steadier. “I thought for sure I’d fucked everything up entirely. I’m glad that I haven’t.”

            “I _will_ request you not do anything _terribly_ stupid without checking with me first,” Iskra said. “I mean, I hate missing out on the opportunity to be fucking stupid, so it would be pretty selfish of you.”

            That got another smile. “Okay, I’ll remember.”

            Jace shifted slightly, then yawned hugely. “Will you be all right if I head back to bed?” he asked. “I’m quite tired, and I don’t really want to explain to Emmara how I got in here tomorrow.”

            “I—I think so, yes.”

            “But I mean, do go ahead and ask Dr. Tandris tomorrow if you want particular visitors. She wants to help. She really—she wants to help.” Avacyn nodded seriously. “And, Iskra?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Don’t get caught in here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the shortish chapter, but it was a good division point. The next one is quite a bit longer.


	10. Rush of Knowledge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jace and Ral Drift *without* a life-threatening situation as impetus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet y'all were wondering why this fic was rated Explicit, weren't you? THIS CHAPTER IS WHY.

            The brain scan turned out to be just as dull and annoying and Ral had expected, although it thankfully took less time than he’d feared. He really didn’t like anyone fucking about with his head; the thought of something going wrong made him restless and irritable.

            “How’s it look?” he asked Emmara, loudly. He knew that it would probably be easier for her if he waited until she volunteered the information, but that was just too bad.

            “Normal,” she said, patiently. “Normal for a Drift hangover, anyway. You’re definitely retaining an imprint of Jace, but it’s beginning to fade. If anything, rather more quickly than I’m used to seeing from the pilots, but then you were only in the Drift for a few minutes.”

            “You’re going to send me a copy of this data, right?” he asked. “Jace can help me figure out what it’s telling me, or I’ll do a quick lit review or something.”

            “Yes, if you’d like.”

            “I would like,” Ral said firmly, then paused, reviewing the conversation in his head. “Thanks,” he tacked on, a little grudgingly. He tried to figure out if there was any point in adding, _This is weird and awkward but I’ve seen you naked now_ , but decided that it was just one more hazard of Drifting and tried to avoid looking too hard at her. Jace thought she was very attractive, and while Ral wouldn’t normally have seen it, the sudden heightened awareness of women had left him a little overly susceptible. Thus far he was coping via spending all his time glued to a computer screen—and he was pretty sure Emmara was right, it _was_ fading. It was disconcerting, but it wasn’t as if there had been a lot of choice at the time. Someone had had to try, and everyone else had been too busy fussing about all the things that could possibly go wrong, instead of paying attention to what was literally going wrong directly in front of them. Idiots.

            “And you’re all done,” Emmara told him. “I’ll have to do further analysis to be certain, but I do think you’re the other pattern in Jace’s head, which is good.”

            “Yeah, he doesn’t really need anyone _else_ taking up real estate in there. Speaking of Jace,” Ral snagged his coffee cup from where he’d left it on the desk by Emmara, “I’m supposed to be meeting him in the lab, now that you’ve finally let him out.”

            “Let him know he can come by anytime,” Emmara smiled.

            “Sure.”

            Jace was waiting for him in the lab, looking much better rested than he had the last few times Ral had seen him. “Ready to work on the sensor interface?” he asked, and Ral grinned lazily.

            “Born ready,” he answered. “At least if you consider getting a doctorate to be a rebirth of sorts.”

            “I’d love to find out,” Jace told him; he smiled warmly, and Ral felt warmth rising in his chest. About to dismiss it as yet another symptom of Drift hangover, he was arrested by the extremely pointed logic that Jace presumably didn’t find himself attractive. Oops. Fuck.

            “So, um,” Jace said. “I actually spent the afternoon putting together a proper Drift rig for the lab, which is nice, because we can run tests on that. It’s bare bones, and I don’t imagine we’ll be using it for actual Drifting, as such, but it’ll be a nice check on the modeling software.”

            “Yeaaahhh,” Ral agreed slowly. “Yeah. Good call.”

~

            They spent the greater part of the afternoon working together, mostly in silence, testing out different configurations, mainly just making sure that they understood the wiring and models and how the predictions compared to the raw waveforms of the device, without any external input. It was companionable; it was pleasant. It was also kind of boring and vaguely awkward.

            By three hours in, Ral was ready to crack, curiosity and some other emotion warring dangerously inside his stomach. _“Lonely, I suppose.”_ Jace’s words after the disastrous solo Drift still echoed in Ral’s head. He knew that part of the reason Jace had said that was because he was trying to keep Avacyn out of trouble, but—that wasn’t the only reason, and Ral thought that he would have known that with certainty even if he _hadn’t_ been in Jace’s head just a moment prior. Maybe—maybe another Drift would help Jace some more. It couldn’t be great for his psyche to constantly be dealing with bits and pieces of a dead man he couldn’t seem to let go of.

            “Hey—” he said, and Jace looked up in some confusion. “Um, Drift with me?”

            Jace paused and blinked. “You—don’t have to do that,” he said hesitantly.

            Ral rolled his eyes. “I am aware,” he said. “Look, I—we’re friends, right?”

            For a moment, Jace seemed unsure how to respond, and Ral felt his heart drop into his stomach. He shouldn’t have said anything, should he? Fuck, he was no good at this. And then a hesitant smile appeared on Jace’s face. “Um. Yeah,” he agreed. “Thanks.”

            “Great,” Ral said, gesturing him over to the opposite seat. “Uh, you should probably do the setup, since it’s more, you know, your thing than mine.”

            Jace gave a small, jerky nod and moved back towards the web of wires and dials laid across the table. He stared at them for a long moment before picking them up and moving around to connect them. “Okay,” he said. “Um, I guess you can take this side? And we should, um, we should probably have the recorder going.” He flashed Ral a weak smile. “Then, if anyone asks, this is definitely for science. Entirely.”

            “Entirely,” Ral nodded as Jace switched on the recording equipment. Jace bit his lip and looked sideways.

            “Kallist and I used to Drift sometimes,” he said quietly. “We said it was to get comfortable with each other, and it—was—but it was more than that. He knew—I think he knew—that it made me feel, um, safer, I guess, or maybe just—less alone.”

            “I’ve never really had much desire for someone else in my head,” Ral said. “But I suppose I can make an exception for the author of my favorite paper.”

            “Oh, it’s your favorite now?”

            “I reread it last night; it’s better than I remembered.” Awkwardly, Ral seated himself across the table from Jace, and let his friend set up the remainder of the hardware. The crown-like headset felt cool against his forehead, and he tried not to fidget nervously.

            “Ready?” Jace asked, sliding into the other seat. He looked about as nervous as Ral felt—which was absurd, because if he could get Jace to switch off a Drift-gone-wrong by poking around in his head, surely a Drift when Jace was in his right mind should be reasonably simple.

            _I’m not fucking scared_. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

            “Okay.”

            Jace’s finger moved. “ _Neural handshake initiating_.” Ral shivered and shut his eyes at the first brush of contact.

            “I’m going to connect us slowly,” Jace said, and Ral nodded.

            _“Neural handshake at ten percent_.”

            The room seemed a little brighter, Ral’s nerves a little sharper. “What was it like for you and Kallist?” he asked abruptly, and Jace looked up at him.

            _\--you sure this is a good idea?_ Ral heard, like a muddy echo of a memory, and he saw Jace flush a little.

            “It was Kallist’s idea at first—I was really more about the theory,” Jace admitted. “But he—was good at getting me to follow his lead, and it turned out that it—was something that really meant a lot to me.”           

            “Have you ever Drifted with anyone else?” _Aside from me_ , but that was such a muddled, confusing experience in Ral’s head, and it had to be worse in Jace’s.

            Jace shook his head. “It’s not that easy to find someone compatible,” he said wistfully, and Ral felt a sudden pang of longing himself.

            “ _Neural handshake at twenty-five percent_.”

            They still weren’t syncing well; there was none of that odd, easy closeness that Ral had felt during his desperate (stupid) dive into Jace’s mind previously. Instead, pinpricks of pain ran through Ral’s temples, and he winced in frustration. “Are you sure it’s working properly?”

            “There’s nothing wrong with the machinery,” Jace said quietly. “But maybe this wasn’t a good idea. We can—try again another time.”

            He wouldn’t be trying again. Ral scowled. “I want to know what the inside of your head looks like,” he said, suddenly. “I don’t know how to let someone in like this, I don’t know how people normally Drift, but—”

            Both of them wanted to know. Jace had been reaching out for a sense of camaraderie, for shared experience, and they didn’t _have_ any of that. Ral was Jewish—lapsed— _the singing is all right, the arguing and the questioning is just fine, but the faith, well, Ral’s never really understood the concept of faith and tradition, and sometimes it all gets too much for him and he gets_ angry _—_ Jace wasn’t religious— _they dress the tree at Christmas for the first time in years because Kallist has just moved in, and he spends most of it quiet and sulking anyway, but at ten minutes to midnight, he asks if he can put the angel on the top, and Jace sees his mother turn to the side to hide her tears_. Ral had grown up in a city— _he’s always needed the bright lights and the noise, it’s too quiet at the Dome, so quiet that sometimes he puts on loud techno music because otherwise he can’t sleep_ —and Jace grew up, not in the countryside, but in a small town— _sleepy little streets, golden in the sunlight, dappled with shadows as he and Kallist ride their bikes down the street and wave at the occasional car_.

            No, they didn’t have any shared memories, but there was a shared—desire, a shared experience. _The burning, nagging sensation at the base of their brain—numbers and theories flying so hot that sleep is impossible, even though they know they’ll wake up logy and frustrated, the answer still far out of reach—frustration at the Marshal and LOCCENT, because they don’t understand the need to_ know _, it’s not all about raw power, if you know, if you_ really _know, it will save you, but if you don’t—_

“ _Neural handshake at ninety percent._ ”

            It was like lightning surging through him. Ral almost rocked with the sensation of _opening_ , a heady sensation like caffeine sparking into his mind, like the _snap_ as his amphetamines kicked in for the day, except bringing with it a sudden, strange, single-minded focus; it was momentarily odd, but it flattened into normalcy almost immediately. Their hearts beat a sudden asynchronous four-note phrase, and Ral felt his breathing speeding up a bit to compensate for—

            _Nervous, Jace_?

            _So are you._

_Shut up._

And Ral felt his breathing pulled faster, as they started to race; sparks burst in front of his eyes. _Stop_ , Jace thought at him. _We’re going to pass out at this rate_ —

            _You stop_. Both of them glared at each other over the table, and then he felt Jace’s shoulders relax just a little, and the pace of his breath slowed just enough for Ral’s to slow as well. They could work like this, Ral realized, shuffling around each other’s minds, grabbing for useful information in _both_ of their memories; this was so much more intimate than even the sudden thin chord that had sprung up between them before. _Bringing me out of a solo Drift is easy_ , Jace smirked, _but now you’re talking my language._

            No one ever had before. Jace’s heart was suddenly aching over the thought he could have had _this_ before if he’d just gone for the PhD— _I doubt it_ , Ral responded, with an eye roll. _Honestly most of the Science Team is just as stupid as the rest._

 _Or maybe you’re just a misanthrope_ , Jace shot back.

            _Yeah, well_. _What does that say about you, if we’re Drift-compatible?_

            Jace was just scared of everyone, he didn’t hate them. Mostly. Except he might have hated several people after Kallist died, after _Sorin_ died, including—

            _That’s stupid_ , Ral shot back at him. _These conditions are impossible to work in at the best of times._ He couldn’t imagine trying to be a Jaeger pilot and do science as well.

            Jace looked up at him from beneath suddenly lowered lashes, and Ral could feel the war beating behind his eyes, and oh, _what the hell_ —they were both leaning forward, the table digging into Ral’s ribs and Jace’s stomach, and their mouths came together in a clumsy, angry, desperate kiss.

            This was nothing like any Drift Jace had ever experienced; they were connected entirely differently than anything he’d imagined, but they _were_ connected. _Thanks, I know you—_

            _I swear to god, Jace, if you tell me I was scared_ —

            _\--don’t like experimenting with things in your brain, I was going to say._

 _I’m in your head, I know what you were going to say._ Jace’s hands were beneath Ral’s, and Ral dug in with his nails, just a little, just enough to send sharp sensation skittering through the backs of both of their wrists, and Jace gasped and moaned into his mouth. Ral smirked against him, and then it was his turn to gasp as Jace freed one of his hands with a twist and brought it up to tangle through Ral’s hair and slide down the back of his neck. He was almost too gentle. _Almost_.

            _Fuck, Jace_.

_Kallist used to tease me about using the Drift for this, I never thought it was a thing people actually did._

_I hope they weren’t fucking in the robots._ The two of them looked at each other, thought about Jace catching Chandra and Nissa giggling nervously and disheveled as they exited Vital Force, and Jace went slowly red. _Great,_ Ral thought. _So glad to know the teams responsible for the safety of the entire world are busy getting it on in their million-dollar machines_. But, he was aware, his complaint lacked a certain amount of force, possibly because Jace’s tongue was now exploring the inside of his mouth, and not particularly cautiously either.

            The table was still between them, which was a slight problem, but Jace solved it before Ral could by climbing up, sliding across, and levering himself awkwardly into Ral’s lap. Ral groaned, hitching his hips up into Jace’s, and Jace made a high noise.

            Somehow, Ral would not have expected the boldness from Jace, but there was a core of steel in his friend he had not really seen before now. _It’s from Kallist_. _I’m a coward_.

            _Really._ Ral slid his hands up beneath Jace’s damn hoody, pulling him closer so that he could nip his way down the side of Jace’s neck. _Forty minutes, Jace_.

            _He stayed._

_You kept him. Stop selling yourself short._

Jace’s hips twitched, and Ral grinned.

            “I’m not—” Jace gasped, “—a _hero_ , Ral.”

            He raised his arms as Ral stripped his shirt off, and he was fumbling at the button-up that Ral was wearing, although his fingers kept losing their purchase. “Heroes are overrated,” Ral snarled, and he tilted his hips up into Jace’s, both of them moaning at the contact. Jace huffed and reached for Ral’s belt, and Ral reached for Jace’s, and with a relatively small amount of fumbling, both managed to free the other’s erection.

            _You’re still scared._

            _Going to tell me not to be?_

            Taking Jace’s hand, Ral nipped at the base of his palm, and Jace whined. _God, no. Not to be cliché, but—_

Bravery wasn’t the absence of fear. Jace was laughing—they were both laughing. _You’re an asshole._

            _Yes, well, I also happen to think heroism is the purview of idiots._ It was Jace who reached between them and caught at their erections, Jace who stroked a long, slow tug from the base to the top, pressing them together, and Ral shuddered and groaned and leaned into the touch.

            “God,” Jace said aloud. “I want—” _Bodies moving together, side by side, tangled in the sheets and in each other’s legs, Jace’s voice moaning high and loud. Fingers brushing against the back of his legs and sliding up. “You ready?” murmurs a voice, and Jace is nodding and begging. They shift positions slightly and then the other man is pushing into him; Jace’s eyes are squeezed shut, his hands clutching at the sheets beneath, his breathless cries loud in his own ears._ The image—the memory—that should’ve been more than TMI, but Ral also got the context and instead of recoiling, he panted into Jace’s mouth.   _This is electric_ , one of them murmured, and they couldn’t tell which one.

            It was Ral who said, “Gonna be a little difficult.” _Maybe having sex in the lab wasn’t the best idea_. But his hands on Jace’s hips, and the desperate rhythm Jace’s hips were already stuttering into argued against any thoughts of moving somewhere else, as did the strange phantom feeling of hands on his hips, even though those were—

            _I guess it is a little masturbatory_. Jace’s laughter echoed through the room, and through their heads. They were starting to lose track of so many things, blurred brains merging together and still Jace wanted— _god, Ral, please._

            _We don’t have condoms or lube, that’s a terrible idea._ Jace made a sad, frustrated noise, and they were kissing again, two hands stuttering down and across their erections, sensation pulsing dizzily through them, as heat spiked and grew urgently between them.

            _A-Another time?_ Another flash— _Jace on his front with his face in the pillows and fingers sliding up inside him, a voice giggling, “Does it feel good?” and Jace moaning in answer—_ and Ral groaned at the thought, curling his own hand around the base of Jace’s spine.

            _Yeah_ , _and then you can return the favor_. Everything was growing muddled, sweat and heat and _sensation_ growing between them as their hands stuttered and stroked, as they hitched their hips closer—

“God, yeah, I wanna be inside you, Ral, _fuck_.” Who would have thought that Jace Beleren’s voice would get so muddy and slurred and hoarse when he was aroused? “ _Fuck_ ,” Jace whimpered again.

            “Trying my best.” He was grinning, slow and lazy, and the grin grew as he felt Jace’s frustrated desire to kiss it off his face. _So do it._

Their lips met in another frantic clash of mouth and tongues and teeth, and they were teetering, heat still building, motions frantic—and then they were over, and the wash of blinding white heat was like nothing either of them had felt before.

            One of them was flopped forward; the other still holding him tightly. It took a minute for their brains to settle back enough to disentangle their thoughts, which was rather like unwrapping their legs from one another, except neither of them wanted to bother going _that_ far.

            “Wow,” Jace whispered, shuddering with afterglow and sending a matching frisson up Ral’s spine. “That—was not was I expecting tonight to be.”

            Ghosting his fingers up Jace’s spine, Ral chuckled. “Me neither,” he admitted. “But I enjoyed myself.” He kissed Jace’s neck, then nipped at his shoulder, and Jace yelped and wriggled breathlessly.

            “ _God_ , too much too _much_ ,” he whined, and Ral felt between them, taking his softening erection and teasing at it, sending hot spiking not-quite-pain through them both. “ _Too much_ ,” Jace said again, and this time Ral stopped.

            “Next time, I won’t touch it at all,” he breathed in Jace’s ear, and Jace groaned at the mental impression of Ral’s hands on his wrists, holding on tight as he rocked down onto Ral’s shaft, every movement enough to send a shock of pleasure up the back of his spine.

“I’ve never been able to come from that,” Jace said muzzily, cheeks hot, and Ral kissed his face, nuzzling into the heat and tasting his sweat.

            “Well,” he grinned, “there’s a first time for everything.”


	11. Second Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

            Jace woke up slowly, something tugging at the back of his mind like sticky tar. It was oddly difficult for him to reach consciousness, and while normally that might have made him panic, right now he just felt warm and sleepy. Someone murmured something near his ear, and he cracked an eye to find that he was looking down at the ancient leather of a couch. Somewhere. It seemed familiar, but his brain was still running in comfortably warm circles.

            There were arms around him. That was nice. Jace wriggled backwards, and lips were pressed into the back of his neck. “Mmmn,” Jace murmured. The soft sleepiness was growing. Any minute, he was going to slip back into a pleasant warm haze.

            “Holy _shit_!”

            He struggled to open his eyes, and this time sort of managed. His brain finally managed to tell him that he was lying on the lab couch, that the person behind him was Ral, and that the person in front of them was Iskra. Shit. Jace looked down. Was he wearing pants? Thank god, he was wearing pants.

            Ral’s intern gave a long, low whistle. “Which of you should I high five?”

            Ral stirred behind Jace, then groaned. “Coffee first, high fives later.”

            “Okay, Ral gets coffee, Jace gets a high five. You guys might want to open some windows in here though.”

            Jace felt his face turning red. “Um,” he said.

            “Hand up, gotta high five somebody, I don’t make the rules.”

            “How much coffee have you already had,” Ral groaned. “And where the fuck are my pants?”

            “Well, someone’s pants are over here,” Iskra said helpfully. “Are they yours?”

            “Nope.” Ral’s hands encircled Jace’s waist and he jumped. “Looks like Jace is wearing mine.”

            “Shit,” Jace said limply. “How did I—”

            _How did I wake up so quickly? I think the whole mind-connection might have helped_.

            They were still connected. Whoops. _Should I turn it off?_

_At least let me get my coffee first._

            Iskra shoved the coffee at Ral, then looked meaningfully at Jace, who sighed and help up a hand, which she slapped energetically. “Congrats, you guys! Seriously, Ral, I thought you were _never_ gonna get laid!”

            “I’ve been laid before,” Ral growled. He was halfway through the coffee already, but he still had an arm slung around Jace’s shoulders, and Jace couldn’t even keep up the feeling of embarrassment. Somehow, all he had room for was a warmth that almost made tears well up in his eyes. “I am very good at getting laid. I simply haven’t chosen to in—”

            “Literal years?”

            “Only a year and a half,” Jace put in mildly.

            Ral sputtered. “ _Jace!_ ”

            Jace kissed his cheek, and laid back against him. “Hold me,” he murmured.

            “God, you two are _adorable_ , I’m getting pictures,” Iskra said.

            “Shoo,” Ral said. “I don’t even have pants on, you can get pictures later.”

            “Oh, but Vinny needs to know immediately.”

            “Vinny won’t even be awake yet. Time difference. Shoo.” Smugly, Ral made a dismissive hand gesture; Iskra rolled her eyes, but took the now-empty coffee cup and headed for the door.

            “Jace, I’m going to need details,” she said. “About you. I have to be able to give Vinny a full report.”

            “Um,” said Jace.

            “Bye!” Iskra squeaked happily, and exited.

            “Sorry,” Ral said. “I mentioned she’s basically my little sister, right?”

            “I suppose she is obligated to give me the third degree.” Jace stretched slowly. “Hang on a minute, we should probably disconnect. I’ve never heard of anyone sleeping in a Drift—I mean you usually can’t, right? But at least we didn’t have nightmares. I’m kind of surprised, actually.”

            “It’s the first time I _haven’t_ had nightmares in a week,” Ral admitted, sounding vaguely frustrated. “I guess the last Drift we had really was kind of fucky.”

            “Maybe something to look into with the models,” Jace said thoughtfully, as he rose and began to disengage the Drift. “Obviously not an experiment I am eager to repeat.”

            “Good,” Ral said shortly. That was better than he’d feared.

            “I’m not suicidal,” Jace said sturdily. “I—may have been less than interested in being alive a few weeks ago, but I’ve gotten better, and, in any case, I wouldn’t have—I mean—”

            Ral gave him a look from under hooded eyelids. “Probably,” he finished, and Jace looked at the ground.

            “Probably,” he murmured.

            “You need a fucking therapist, and you also need a goddamn break,” Ral told him, and Jace nodded slowly.

            “I know,” he said, shutting his eyes as the last echoes of the Drift faded between them, leaving him alone in his head with silence all around. Tears pricked at the back of his eyes at the sensation, and he tried to breathe through the sudden, nearly all-consuming wave of loneliness.

            “Hey, I’m right here, asshole,” Ral told him. “Now get back over here, I’m not ready to get up, and you make a good space heater.”           

            That drew a smile out of him, and, seating himself on the edge of the couch, he found that Ral’s physical proximity did help. Jace sank back into his embrace with an uncontrollable shudder. “So,” he said, after an uncomfortable minute. “This—this is going to be a thing, right?”

            He felt Ral’s breath across his ear and the back of his neck. “You mean are we dating now?”

            “Um. Yeah. I know I’m kind of a mess…”

            Ral shrugged. “Don’t expect me to always be able to clean it up, and we’ll be fine.” His arms tightened about Jace ever-so-slightly. “Also don’t—don’t do stupid shit.”

            Iskra’s conversation with Avacyn a few days ago came to mind. “I’ll let you know before doing something stupid, in case you want the option to join in,” Jace told him, and Ral snorted with laughter.

            “Right. Yeah. Good call. So yeah, I guess we’re dating now. Do I need to get you flowers or something?”

            “Nah.” Jace wriggled sideways and turned around so that he could kiss Ral on the mouth. “I might get you some, though. I can be horribly romantic.”

            “You’ll have to put them in water if you don’t want them to die. I never remember to take care of plants. Drives my mother crazy. She still swears I let her prize poinsettia die on purpose.”

            “Did you?” Jace asked in amusement.

            “No!” Ral paused. “Probably not,” he amended. “I maybe could have tried a little harder to save it, though.”

            Although Jace wasn’t particularly sleepy anymore, it was still comfortable to lean back in Ral’s arms like this. _You don’t need to be a hero,_ he told himself. _You can just be. Ral doesn’t care_. Right now, he could just—be here. Safe and warm and—well, safe and warm, anyway.

            Of course, it couldn’t last. After a few minutes, Ral started complaining about his left arm getting stiff, and got up to go poke at the computer. Jace yawned, sighed, and flopped back down, promising himself he’d get up in a few minutes. He wasn’t usually this lazy in the mornings, but he usually hadn’t spent the night hooked up to someone whose idea of “morning” started at noon.

            It was maybe a quarter of an hour later, and Jace was actually starting to doze off again, when the Marshal’s voice came tinnily through the intercom. “Jace. Report to Paragon.”

            “ _What_?”

            “It’s Villainess again, and Paragon is the only Jaeger with appropriate sensors to track her down.”

            “Marshal, I can’t run the Drift by myself—”

            “Just get on board. I’ll have two of the other Jaegers tow you out, and you can read the sensors—”

            Jace shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. The sensors are integrated directly into the Drift. We haven’t had a chance to adjust them to work any other way.”

            From the other end of the line came the sound of a vicious expletive. “All right. I know you’ve been working with the Science Team. Do you know if there’s anyone on the station you’re Drift-compatible with?”

            “Well—” Apparently no one had told Marshal Tirel the details of what had happened last week. Jace felt his cheeks heat up, and he glanced over to where Ral was leaning lazily back in his computer chair, a pair of headphones dangling from his ears. He still hadn’t bothered to put on pants, and his boxers had a pattern of red-and-blue dragons on them, which Jace hadn’t noticed the previous night. “Uh—yes? But he’s not trained—”

            “I don’t care. Get him and get your ass down to Paragon now. We’re out of other options.” The line went dead.

            A chill ran down Jace’s spine as he looked over at Ral, still staring at the computer and humming to himself. It took him a moment to get up the courage to cross the room and put a hand on Ral’s shoulder. “Ral?” he said, quietly.

            “Hm?”

            Although Jace opened his mouth to answer, nothing came out. Instead, he was suddenly shivering as if he were freezing cold, and he had to take Ral’s hand for a long moment.

            “Jace?” Ral said quizzically. “Uh…I missed something, didn’t I?”

            “V-Villainess,” Jace managed. “LOCCENT needs the sensors.”

            “…and it’s a two-man job. Well. Fuck.” He got to his feet and grabbed the pair of pants off the floor. “You know I’m not exactly a trained soldier, right?”

            Somehow, Jace managed a wan smile. “I did spend the past twelve hours or so inside your head, I think I have some idea of your capabilities. And most of my training—well, most of my training was Kallist’s.”

            “So—both of us are gonna be borrowing whatever you have left of Kallist. Right. That sounds safe.” Ral cracked his neck to the side. “Well, come on, then. I don’t think Villainess is just going to wait around for us.”


	12. Cruel Revival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jace goes up against Villainess again, this time with Ral at his side.

            They suited up in a tense silence. Orders were crackling back and forth through their headsets from LOCCENT, but most of them were irrelevant, and Jace let them wash over him and tried to fight the rising sense of nausea in his stomach. Mentally, he went through the motions of preparing for a kaiju fight; then he went over them again. Then Ral needed help getting all the connections to the suit correct—“sorry, haven’t really done this properly before”—and then Jace caught himself going through the same thought patterns for the third time without meaning to, and he pressed his nails into his hand to try and distract himself.

            Unfortunately, the next thing his brain come up with was, _You’re going to get Ral killed, too_ , and he had to push that one down hurriedly before the Drift came online. _You’re not a hero,_ echoed through his and Ral’s heads as their awarenesses crashed together again. In Paragon, even though the Drift had been reset, Jace could feel the difference from the crude lab setup. There was a heavy quality about the Drift; their thoughts seemed to get caught up and bounce around like the echoes in a huge concert hall.

            _I hope we’re alone in here_. For a moment, it was a week and a half ago, and Ral was staring in horror at Jace, convulsing in the suit, while Paragon’s voice repeated a monotonous yet somehow desperate sounding warning. Jace took a sharp breath in at the hollow reminder of that strange, empty chill, the desperate attempt to just _find_ Kallist—

            _Stop it, Jace._ He didn’t know if the voice was Ral’s or his own, but he jerked himself back to the present. He hadn’t expected how sharp and raw the pain of Drifting inside Paragon again without Kallist would be. Shuddering, he tried to breathe through the pain, tried to reach back to the night before and the—the—

            _The storm. The strange muffled quiet, the ringing in his ears, as he gathers up his bicycle unsteadily and staggers to his feet. Shit. He’s going to be late._

Only the echo of an old children’s movie _I’m late for a very important date_ kept him from chasing the rabbit. Jace pulled himself back to the present again, but the Drift felt steadier now. _Did you seriously get_ struck by lighting _and then keep going?_

Ral shifted in his restraints, chuckling with a little embarrassment. _Hey, I was late for the science fair. And it was only a side bolt._

“ _Martial Paragon, are you ready for launch?”_

            “We’re ready, Marshal.” _You’re going to be fine_ , one of them said to the other. Jace gritted his teeth. It was time to face his demons.

            _Just the one_ , Ral quipped. His mind burned brightly at Jace’s side, and Jace found himself mentally holding on almost pathetically tightly as Paragon prepared to leave the docking bay.

            Everything felt _new_ , sharp and bright as if they’d just come out of the eye doctor’s. _Yeah, I know everyone says ooh I can see leaves, but that’s really what happened_ , Ral sulked. Jace flashed a mental smile at him.

            “Okay,” he said aloud, to Ral and the rest of the Jaegers. “Let’s do this.”

            They traveled out towards the sensor indication in tense silence. The best Jace could do to silence the voice in his head was to let his own thoughts go still and try to follow Ral’s instead. Ral was excited and refusing to admit to nerves, but also busy running through calculations to make certain the sensors had been correctly calibrated, and that was something Jace could help with. They worked together, almost as one unit, until Chandra’s voice said tersely from Vital Force, “ _We’ve got her in our sights_.”

            The kaiju flickered across Paragon’s specialized sensors. “ _Vital Force, Masterpiece Horde, Ghost Assassin, hang back,_ ” Marshal Tirel instructed steadily. “ _Martial Paragon. Engage._ ”

            “Copy,” Ral said. “Well, here goes nothing,” he told Jace, and they launched the Jaeger forward together.

            Villainess twisted in the water as they moved towards her, her movements quick as a snake striking, but they managed to dodge clumsily aside. Mostly out of instinct, Jace’s half of Paragon struck out at her, and, to his surprise, the blow actually connected this time. She darted to the side with a keening sound of pain.

            The thin, fibrillar net draped across her skull appeared as lines of bright fire in the enhanced sensors. Dead spots flickered where Paragon’s fist had torn through the delicate netting and torn or disrupted it. The kaiju reared back with a hissing cry of pain, and Ral and Jace took another step forward, pressing their advantage.

            “Assassin,” Jace said steadily, “We need you behind her.”

            “Transferring coordinates now,” Ral added, and Jace’s right hand moved in time with Ral’s words. Ral was still a microsecond slower than Jace, and Paragon’s motion was a little jerkier than it might have been otherwise, but it gave Jace time to deal with the unaccustomed balance of the neural load. _Sorry that I’m so normal_.

            _Shut up, Ral_. They could both feel the pressure of the suit on their inner hand; it was almost as if they were holding hands.

            Villainess shrieked, still trying to retreat, and Ghost Assassin loomed up from behind her. “ _Copy_ , _standing by_ ,” Teysa said. The kaiju writhed in the ocean, this way and the other, and then the brightness of her sensor veil seemed to dim at the edges, the light draining toward the central point between her horns. The electric field around her shifted.

            She was radiating something high-frequency with a very complex wave pattern; while the sensors could pick it up, the analysis software wasn’t terribly advanced yet, and all that it seemed to be able to give them was that there was some sort of periodic structure to the apparent chaos. When pain seared through the Drift, the question became rather academic.

            _What is she doing? How is she doing it?_ Jace was pretty sure at least one of those had been Ral’s question, and then—Ral was gone. The close, comfortable touch of the second mind was whited out beneath a sudden wash of chaotic, jittering mental noise. A moment later, not just Ral but everything vanished beneath the onslaught; Jace’s senses dissolved in a crackling mix of static.

            _…lonely…_

            _Kallist?_

            Everything was white. Jace tried to turn his head and wasn’t sure if he succeeded, because the blank white nothing seemed to carry on in every direction without end. “I’m lonely,” Kallist said again, more clearly this time, and Jace struggled to move in the direction of his voice.

            “Kallist? Where are you?”

            “I’m lonely,” Kallist sighed again, and something caught his voice, echoing it and distorting it before bouncing it back to Jace’s ears. _Lonely…onely…onely_.

            “Where _are_ you?” Jace demanded again. There was a spot of something slightly greyer than white a little ahead and to the left, like an elongated grey stain seeping through the blankness that covered everything. If he squinted, he could almost make out a human shape, standing in a familiar unbalanced stance, dark hair flopping into his eyes above a lazy grin. “Miss you, Jace.”

            “Kallist,” Jace groaned. “Just—just come back.” He was holding out a hand that he couldn’t see.

            “This way,” said someone else, another stain seeping in through the background, this one the faint yellow-green-purple of a healing bruise. “Come here.” There was something strange about her; her form seemed to be comprised of broad, blurry brush strokes. Jace could just barely make out a dark purple dress clinging to a feminine figure, and a crown set on her wavy, dark hair. “This way,” she said again.

            “I’m lonely,” Kallist told him again, and Jace felt a familiar ache of emptiness rising beneath his breastbone.

            “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I tried to keep you—safe. Here. With me.”

            “Come here?” Kallist’s smile could have melted stone.

            _Follow him,_ said the persistent, worn tracks in Jace’s mind. _Follow Kallist_. _Go to him._ They’d always been together, since they were children. For years now they’d been in and out of each other’s heads. Kallist was the hero, the protector, the shield, and Jace was the one who figured out how to make things work, how to keep going. He didn’t know who to be by himself. He didn’t know _how_ to be. He took a step forward. Kallist kept smiling.

            _I’m not suicidal._ He wanted to rest. He wanted things to be easier. But he didn’t want to die. “Why did you leave me, you asshole?” Jace demanded. “You were always—always my big brother.” Kallist just watched him, that same stupid smile on his face.

            Another voice, desperately faint, whispering from a long-ago memory. _You have to let it go, Jace. You can’t win ’em all._ He’d gotten a B on another math test, senior year of high school, wasn’t it? And his first reaction hadn’t been great; all he could think of was how much he was letting everyone down. How Tezzeret had been _right_ about him. About what a useless failure he was.

            “But I’m not,” Jace said, quietly, suddenly. “I’m _not_ a failure.”

            “I’m lonely,” the wavering shadow of Kallist said again.

 _I’ll let you know before doing something stupid. In case you want to join in._ He’d promised, hadn’t he? What did he think he was doing here? “I love you,” Jace said to the smear that might have been a memory of a thought. “But I’ve got to let you go.” The purple-clad figure to his right seemed to shiver and distort, and Jace winced. This wasn’t— _right_. Where was the Drift? Where was Ral?

            Everything was numb, white, and muted. What could have caused that? All he could remember was a radiative pulse from Villainess, and then—nothing. “Come here,” said a blurred female voice, and Jace felt the tug, the overwhelming pull to let himself fall into the whiteness, but this time he was ready for it. It wasn’t like chasing the rabbit, not quite, but it was related. Except instead of Ral, there was something else waiting for him, and he didn’t like his odds if he fell in.

            Color began to seep back in at the edges of his vision, which made sense, because a burst of directed energy might scramble the Drift briefly, but Paragon’s systems were robust enough that they would bounce back reasonably rapidly. Jace could faintly feel the pull and jolt of the harness, and hear a voice calling for Paragon to respond, but he still couldn’t answer.

            Before he could fully shake off the disorientation, pain blossomed in his skull, and he felt Paragon listing heavily to the side. The Jaeger felt as if it had had a stroke—paralyzed all the way down its side—and the pain was creeping in, beating an angry pulse against Jace’s temple and eating forward like a slow fire. Ral. Where was Ral? The other half of the Drift felt—empty.

            But it wasn’t cold this time. Fighting against the pain, Jace managed to turn his head to the side. Ral was there, but he was limp in his suit, and Paragon’s voice was blaring an alarm that Jace couldn’t quite comprehend. Gritting his teeth, Jace turned his thoughts inward again, pushing against the pain towards the other side of the Drift. _Ral?_ he thought desperately. _Ral, where are you?_

_\--come here—_

_\--this way—_

He could feel the impulse dragging on him again, and he followed it, searching for anything reminiscent of the bright, electric impression of Ral’s thoughts. _Ral, please_. There was no whiteness here, no blank slate: instead, he was surrounded by a grayish static like a television monitor picking up nothing. As Jace continued to concentrate desperately, it seemed to resolve into crawling white scribbles across a black background, like chalk on a chalkboard. And then, quite suddenly, he saw Ral.

            The scientist was bent over a computer in the middle of the scribbles, typing frantically. Two large candles sat on top of the monitor, but, although they were lit, the light didn’t even illuminate the top of the computer, much less Ral’s face or hands, which were entirely shadowed.

            “Ral, hey, we need to get back.”

            No response at first. Then a muttered, “have to solve this,” and Ral raked a hand through his hair. Around them, Jace could see faint brushstrokes resolving into the crude approximation of a computer lab.

            “We need to get _back_ ,” Jace said again, and this time he reached out and put a hand on Ral’s shoulder. At least he had a hand now. When Ral turned, though, Jace almost jerked back: his face was nothing but a smear of shadow covered in the same static scribbles as the rest. “Oh, god.”

            Ral shook his blank head. “I have to solve it,” he said urgently, and something dark and sinuous twined up his left arm where his tattoo should have been. “I have to fucking _solve_ it.”

            What could he say? Jace knew how strong the drive to find an answer was in Ral; how could he not, when it had been what had connected the two of them in the Drift in the first place? And even though he knew that only a few seconds could have passed in the physical world, they were running out of time. Best case, Villainess would escape. Worst case, Ral would—

            Jace leaned forward and put his hands on Ral’s shadowed shoulders. “Let me solve it with you,” he said softly. “Let me in.”

            The candles flickered once, then guttered out, leaving only the faint green glow of the computer screen. “Jace?” Ral’s voice said uncertainly, and Jace felt just the barest brush of Ral’s hand against the top of his. Light flared, sudden and swift, between them, as quickly as it had vanished.

            _I’m here._

_Come here._

_I have to figure it out!_

_I’m lonely._

_There are nine candles now, and none of them are orthogonal. Why is it always candles, anyway? He prefers Purim—dress-up is fun—or Sukkot, which at least gets him outside. There’s a sukkah rising around them, but it has no roof, and above them, the cold stars shine down. Lightning sparks from one to the other, axons and neurons firing with their usual brilliant visuals, but he can’t find a pattern in them, no matter how hard he looks. If he can’t find a pattern, they’ll die. Avacyn and Iskra, Chandra and Nissa, Maree and Mizzix, Kallist…_

_I’m lonely. I have to solve it. I have to fix it._

_But none of this is real. What’s real is that Kallist is gone already, but we can save the others if we try. If we let the problem go._

_I can’t let go!_

_Yes, you can. I’ll help._

Jace felt Ral’s hand in his. _Trust me._

_…All right._

Jace’s head was pounding again, but the pain was retreating, and the static was clearing.

 _Fuck. Sorry_. They couldn’t be physically holding hands, but Jace felt Ral’s hand squeeze his anyways. _Well, let’s take this bitch out._ And there he was, and the Drift was tightening around both of them, the way it had, momentarily, when they’d—well. After they’d dealt with Villainess, they could return to this line of thinking. Right now, it was apparently time to be heroes. And when they opened their minds, Paragon was waiting for them. He welcomed them with open arms.

            The smell of salt water hit first, followed by the chill of the sea up to their thighs. It was so bright, daylight cascading down around them, and the churning horizon unspooling off towards infinity. _I want to catch that horizon_ , they thought briefly, before turning their attention back to the squirming thing that was now swimming as quickly as it could away from them. It looked as if it was about to slide just through Ghost Assassin’s blind spot.

            “Assassin, we need a hit to your right.”

            “Copy,” Assassin responded sweetly, and they raised their right arm, churning through the water. The blow caught the rapidly-fleeing kaiju, knocking her back into Paragon’s reach, and she reared up, her sensor veil flaring like a snake’s hood, desperately trying to make herself appear bigger.

            “Not this time,” Paragon said. “We’ve got you this time.” The first hit knocked Villainess to the side, and the next moment they caught at the base of her horns. She screamed again and writhed, but they held on tightly, pulling at the delicate sensor web. It was resilient, but not resilient enough to stand up to the force Paragon was capable of unleashing. Droplets of blue blood sprayed across the ocean as the web stretched sickeningly and then parted.

            With another shriek, Villainess flung herself bodily at Paragon, and they staggered backward as her full weight hit them. She was trying to wrap herself around them, constrict them like a snake. “Fuck,” Paragon yelped as their arms were pinned to their sides, and they staggered as one looping coil caught at their ankle.

            “Use your blaster!” someone urged—Vital Force, maybe. Right—right. They were still clumsy at this, but four pairs of hands moved to disengage the safeties and three voices echoed inside Paragon’s confines; the heavy, nuclear-powered central blaster began to charge.

            They staggered, struggling to keep their balance, for an interminably long countdown, with the metal of their torso groaning in their ears, and pressure mounting. “Look out!” they shouted, and Assassin dove for the side as the blaster finally emitted one long, hot pulse. As it did, Paragon braced themselves and wrenched their arms apart as hard as they could. The stench of burning flesh filled the air.

            Their arms burst outwards in a welter of dark ichor, but they lost their balance, tumbling backwards into the ocean. The screams of the kaiju disappeared in the sudden silence of the water all around them, although they could still hear the chatter of the other Jaegers echoing through their head. _We’ve got her—everyone altogether—_

Blows shivered the sea-floor, as Paragon picked themselves up slowly. With the cool water running off their shoulders, they stood up to see that the sea was foaming with dark blood, and it was oddly silent. Vital Force stood, holding what looked like a chunk of rotten fish in their hands, and that was when Paragon realized that it wasn’t _silence_ ; it was emptiness. The brightness illuminating their electrosensors was gone.

            They’d done it. They’d killed her.

            “ _Paragon, report_.” The Marshal’s voice, sounding very far away.

            “The threat has been neutralized,” they said. “We did it.”

            “ _Congratulations_.” Even from here they could hear her smile.

            _Good job, Jace, you’re a hero._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand we're pretty much done except for the final chapter, which is mostly an epilogue. I don't know that I'm done with this verse though...we'll see.


	13. Heroism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath.

They stumbled out of Paragon, Ral’s arm slung across Jace’s shoulder. They were both laughing, a desperate laugh that was probably tinged with more than a touch of hysteria. A whistling cheer went up through everyone waiting for them, and Jace had to turn and bury his face in Ral’s shoulder, because he wasn’t a hero, and he didn’t deserve this.

            Except he had saved them all—the two of them, practically untrained, slung together in their third-ever Drift, had handed Villainess her ass on a platter. Somehow. God. Jace simultaneously wanted to sleep for a week and celebrate for a month. A celebration that he thought might involve Ral, fewer clothes, and maybe an actual _bed—_

            “Congratulations, you two!” It was Emmara, and Jace looked up, face wet with what were probably his own tears to see that she was leaning against the wall and smiling at both of them. Then she blinked. “Are—are you wearing each other’s pants?”

            Jace blinked back and looked slowly down at himself. “Uh…” he said. “Shit.”

            Ral’s laughter echoed loudly in his ear. “He fell asleep in mine. There wasn’t time to change this morning.”

            “Oh,” said Emmara. Then, blushing, “ _oh_.”

            He should be more embarrassed about this, shouldn’t he? But all Jace felt was a floaty sort of weariness. _Time to sleep for a week_ , he thought giddily again.

            “Yeah,” Ral agreed, and Jace thought, _Wow, this is a hell of a Drift hangover_ , and then Emmara said, “Jace, you’re talking out loud.”

            “I am?” He blinked. “Ral, I don’t want to go to bed by myself. I never go to bed by myself.”

            “Not sure I’m up for anything too energetic,” Ral responded with a tired grin.

            For a moment, Jace shook his head, baffled. “Wait,” he said, slowly. “Wait, no, I meant—I meant actual sleeping.”

            “Yeah, I know, I’m teasing you.” There was a sudden moment of tense silence, and Jace felt lost, because he was too tired, because for some odd reason he couldn’t seem to read Ral anymore, and then Ral leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. “Yeah. Sure. If you want.”

            “Fantastic.” Jace was nearly giggling. He dragged Ral sideways so that he could give Emmara a quick sideways squeeze, tottered, and nearly fell.

            “Yeah, okay, you need a nap,” said Ral, before taking another step and looking down in surprise as his knee simply gave out.

            “Sit down, both of you,” Emmara told them, gentle but firm. She moved her hand beneath Jace’s elbow, and between the three of them, they were able to get Ral and Jace into a sitting position on the floor, leaning against one another.

            “I really was not prepared for that,” Ral admitted, with a groan. “Good thing you’ve had some actual training, Jace. You saved my ass when she did that weird head thing.”

            Jace opened his mouth to protest and shut it again. “Um, you’re welcome,” he said. “Thanks for not—not dying on me.”

            “I tend to avoid it as a matter of principal,” Ral said dryly. “Unfortunate lightning strikes notwithstanding.”

            “Mmm.” Jace leaned sideways into him and kissed Ral just beneath his ear. Ral made a breathless noise.

            “I thought you said you just wanted to sleep,” he murmured breathlessly.

            “Mmm,” Jace agreed again, resting his face in the junction of Ral’s neck and his throat. “Sleep sounds nice.”

            “I have no idea how we’re going to get him to a bed,” he heard Ral’s voice saying, strangely far away.

            “I’ll get the other pilots to help.” Emmara’s voice stretched, went thin and long, and Jace felt himself sinking into comfortable darkness.

~

            When he woke up, Jace felt more rested and refreshed than he had in days. He was warm and comfortable, his front pressed into someone’s back. Ral, he realized after another moment or two. His knees were tucked into the back of Ral’s, and one arm was flung across the other man’s chest. Ral was snoring.

            Smiling, Jace lay against him for several minutes before yawning and getting out of bed. He tucked the covers up around Ral’s shoulders, and his lover murmured something incomprehensible and turned over. He didn’t seem likely to wake in the near future, and he probably needed the sleep. Jace, though, was restless; maybe he’d go and get some coffee in the cafeteria. The events of the morning had assumed almost a surreal quality: Jace could hardly believe his own memories.

            Golden afternoon light filtered through the windows of the Shatterdome as Jace made his way slowly through the corridor. Sounds seemed a little muted; it was very peaceful. He passed a few coworkers, all of whom smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up; Jace blushed and ducked his head before nodding back.

            Iskra and Avacyn were getting food in the cafeteria when he arrived, and he grabbed a coffee and joined them. He hadn’t realized that Avacyn had been released from the infirmary yet, but she seemed all right, if rather subdued. She’d lost weight, but she seemed to be at least trying to eat.

            “Is it okay if I sit here?” Jace asked, before realizing that he could be intruding. But Avacyn gave him a wan smile and gestured to the chair across from her.

            “Congrats,” Iskra grinned. “You done good, Jace.”

            “Yeah, um. Thanks.”

            “Thank you,” Avacyn said quietly; she reached across the table and quickly pressed her hand against Jace’s. He gave her a tired nod.

            “Who’s that?” Iskra asked.

            Jace looked up from his coffee to see a weirdly familiar figure in the doorway, though he couldn’t place him. A man wearing jeans and a loose, embroidered vest stood there, one thumb hooked awkwardly through his belt. He had a shock of long brown hair falling messily over an undercut, and he was scratching at a scrubby beard nervously with the other hand. His bare torso was covered in designs, some colorful, others simply raised in neat, scarred patterns. Two ridged flames sprang up from the base of his chest.

            Avacyn looked up as well, and her eyes widened. “Pa?” she whispered.

            He cleared his throat. “Hey there, baby girl. Sorry I—didn’t hear earlier. Guess I fucked that one up royally, huh?”

            Avacyn’s lip was trembling as she stood up. “Papa,” she said, and her voice sounded so hauntingly young to Jace’s ears. “Oh, Papa, I missed you.”

            “I’m real sorry about Sorin, Ava.” He was halfway across the cafeteria when Avacyn, who had seemed frozen in place, moved, darting forward as rapidly as a gazelle, and threw herself into his arms. Her other father held her awkwardly at first, then with growing care, putting a hesitant hand in her hair. “I’m real sorry,” he said again. “I’m gonna—I’ll make it up to you. I will.”

            Iskra had gotten to her feet as well, blinking across at the unfolding scene. “Go on,” Jace told her gently, nudging her shoulder. “She wants you there.” Indeed, Avacyn was stretching an arm back towards her girlfriend as he spoke.

            “Um, Papa, this is Iskra, she’s my girlfriend. Play nice?”

            “I never play nice,” objected her father, but he held out the hand that wasn’t resting on Avacyn’s hair. “Uh, nice to meet you, kid. I’d threaten to break your legs if you hurt her, but _probably_ should plan on breaking my own first? I don’t have the first clue how to be a good dad. Sorry I was gone for so long, Ava. Um. Yeah, that’s all I’ve got. I suck.”

            Avacyn was saying something else, but Jace had grabbed his coffee and gotten up. They deserved a little privacy anyway, and he suddenly wanted to be alone with his thoughts for a little while. He sort of wanted to cry, but in—a good way?

            He passed Marshal Tirel in the hallway, and she gave him a smile and a murmured, “Well done, Jace,” which he nodded at painfully again, with a sudden jolt, because, even after all this, he still didn’t feel like a hero. And yet—

            He made his way out of the Dome and down to the beach, shivering and pulling the hood of his sweatshirt up against the chilly sea breeze that blew in and tried to squirm its way down the back of his neck.

            Quietly, Jace gazed out at the ocean. _It_ wasn’t peaceful; it was white with foam churned up by high waves, and a set of low, dark clouds at the horizon heralded the arrival of a storm. But it was still _their_ ocean. He and Ral had made sure of that. _He’d_ made sure of that. There was a little, nagging voice inside of Jace muttering that he wasn’t good enough—he thought it had always been there, even before Tezzeret, although it had gotten louder after. It would probably always be there. You could be a hero, Jace thought, without ever believing that you were. And maybe someday he really would fuck up so badly that it was the end. But that wasn’t today. And today the little voice was almost silent.

            Absentmindedly, Jace rubbed at his thumbnails with his index fingers, a habit he’d picked up especially when he was wearing nail polish, the unaccustomed smoothness strangely soothing. The next moment he glanced down, because the thumb on his right hand was rougher than he’d expected. The paint must have been stripped off sometime during their earlier struggle with Villainess, and now there was just a lumpy little black border at the edge of the nail. Jace stared at it for a long moment, then shoved his hand into his pocket. He’d get Avacyn to do his nails again soon. For now, he thought he’d keep walking along the shore. And then—then he’d go back, and Ral would be waiting, and things—well, maybe they were starting to be a little bit okay.

            Maybe he was starting to be a little bit okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :)


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